Federal Reports

This final report provides the results of our audit to assess the First Responder Network Authority’s (FirstNet’s) oversight of the contract awarded to develop and implement the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network. Our audit objective was to determine whether FirstNet properly administered the contract’s Task Order Number 3, Deployment, Operation, and Maintenance of the Nationwide Core.

The OIG investigated allegations that a U.S. National Park Service (NPS) employee sexually harassed a colleague during a trip to gather data from a weather station.We found that the employee made unwanted sexual advances towards the colleague during an off-duty road trip including hugging, kissing, and making inappropriate comments.

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a risk assessment of VA’s charge card program evaluating the transactions of the three types of charge card business lines—purchase cards (including convenience checks), travel cards, and fleet cards—for fiscal year 2018. The team reviewed applicable VA policies, procedures, and other controls. The team also compared FY 2017 with FY 2018 charge card data to identify transactions or patterns of activity that represent potentially illegal, improper, or erroneous charge card purchases. The OIG determined that the purchase card program remains at medium risk of illegal, improper, or erroneous purchases, as previously assessed for FY 2017. Data mining of purchase card transactions identified potential misuse of purchase cards. OIG investigations, audits, and reviews continue to identify patterns of purchase card transactions that do not comply with the Federal Acquisition Regulation and VA policies and procedures. The OIG also found that VA’s Travel Card Program and Fleet Card Program both remain at low risk for illegal, improper, or erroneous purchases. The risk assessment team assigned a low risk level to both programs primarily because data mining established a low percentage of potential duplicate and split purchases. Travel card transactions represented only about 2.7 percent of the approximately $4.8 billion spent by VA on charge card transactions during FY 2018. Fleet card transactions represented only about 0.4 percent of that amount.

The Cedar Elm Station is in the Rio Grande District of the Southern Area. This delivery unit has 61 delivery routes (39 city and 22 rural) delivered by 89 carriers (52 city and 37 rural). We selected this unit based on our analysis of Enterprise Customer Care (eCC) complaint cases. Our objective was to evaluate the package delivery scanning process on select routes at the Cedar Elm Station in San Antonio, TX.

This management alert presents issues identified during our ongoing audit of Postal Service Transportation Network Operations and Cost Optimization Practices. The purpose of this management alert is to provide Postal Service officials immediate notification of the issues identified during our ongoing audit. The issues outlined in this report require immediate attention and remediation.

A former Amtrak Maintainer was sentenced to 12 months of probation on July 19, 2019, in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas for advertising the sale of drug paraphernalia. A joint investigation by Amtrak OIG and the Drug Enforcement Agency determined that the company employee was involved in a scheme where chemicals were ordered from China, manufactured into steroids, and then distributed throughout the Bucks County area.

We evaluated the National Park Service’s (NPS’) right-of-way (ROW) permitting process and how revenues for commercial cellular facilities are collected and accounted for.We found that the NPS was not properly collecting and accounting for revenues for commercial ROW permits, including the collection of land use fees and cost recovery. Overall, the management of the commercial ROW program and the implementation of governing NPS policy need improvement.Specifically, the NPS could improve its management of the permitting process, collect additional revenue, recover costs, and increase compliance with NPS policy by:• Preparing and issuing accurate and timely bills for collection to ROW permit holders• Documenting employee time and costs associated with ROW permits for cost recovery• Completing and updating its cellular facilities inventory, including evaluating the appropriateness of currently unpermitted facilities• Developing an action plan to ensure compliance with NPS policyWe made six recommendations to help the NPS improve its commercial ROW program. The NPS concurred with all six recommendations and has started implementing some.