Federal Reports

We audited the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI’s) fiscal year (FY) 2019 first quarter financial and award data submission in accordance with the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act) and submission standards developed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).We assessed the data and found that, while they contained most of the required information and conformed to the OMB and Treasury standards, there were small deficiencies in completeness, timeliness, and accuracy of the data we sampled. Specifically, we found in the 57 data elements for each of the 385 transactions that 3.45 percent were incomplete, 2.84 percent were not timely, and 11.34 percent were not accurate. These results were projected to the DOI’s FY 2019 first quarter submission, and the deficiencies were small enough to still meet the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency Federal Audit Executive Council’s “higher” quality standard.We offer three recommendations to help the DOI improve its submissions and comply with standards. In response to our draft report, the DOI concurred with all three recommendations. Based on this response, we consider all three recommendations to be resolved but not implemented. We will refer the recommendations to the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget for implementation tracking.

We reviewed the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) to determine what progress has been made in improving its incident investigations program since the Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010. Overall, we learned that BSEE improved its incident investigations program, but communication challenges were impacting the program.BSEE made progress in improving its incident investigations program. Specifically, BSEE established a National Investigations Program, dedicated staff to incident investigations, developed policies to address incident investigations, and created a basic training program on conducting incident investigations. In addition, BSEE updated and finalized its investigations policy, tiering policy, and handbook.While BSEE made improvements in these areas, we found communication issues that were negatively impacting the incident investigations program.

The OIG investigated allegations that Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux Tribal Police Officer Willard White stole $40,000 from the Tribe. White allegedly obtained the funds under the pretense of creating a youth diversion program but spent the money on personal purchases and did not create the program.We found the Tribe gave White $40,000 to create a youth diversion program. White, however, spent the entire amount on personal purchases, none of which supported the establishment of the proposed program. In addition, White did not report the $40,000 as income to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).White pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of Montana to one count of18 U.S.C. § 1343, Wire Fraud, and one count of 26 U.S.C. § 7201, Income Tax Evasion. On October 9, 2019, White was sentenced to 6 months in prison and 2 years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $40,000 in restitution to the Fort Peck Tribe, $18,050 in restitution to the IRS, and a $200 special assessment.

Effective January 1, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) established a policy for Medicare to pay under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) for chronic care management (CCM) services rendered to beneficiaries whose medical conditions meet certain criteria. Before that effective date, physicians did not have the ability to bill separately for typical non-face-to-face care management services provided to these beneficiaries. CCM payments are at a higher risk for overpayments compared with payments for more established Medicare services. CCM services are a relatively new category of Medicare-covered services and have multiple restrictions on when and how they can be billed.