Federal Reports

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) fiscal year 2018 compliance with the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA). Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD complied with IPERA reporting and improper payment reduction requirements according to guidance from Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-123, appendix C.Fiscal year 2018 marked the sixth consecutive year in which HUD did not comply with IPERA. In 2018, HUD complied with three of the six IPERA requirements, did not comply with two requirements, and one requirement was not applicable. Specifically, HUD did not always (1) publish improper payment estimates for all required programs and (2) report an improper payment rate of less than 10 percent. These conditions occurred because HUD was continuing to revamp its program to address many of the prior-year IPERA compliance issues.New recommendations were not made because prior-year audit recommendations that remain open will help HUD remediate repeat findings identified in this year’s report if implemented.

We were engaged by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), Office of Inspector General ("OIG"), to conduct a performance audit of the EEOC charge card program, which includes both purchase and travel cards. EEOC uses purchase cards to reduce the administrative cost of processing small dollar purchases and travel cards to reduce the cost of official travel and for the convenience of the traveler.

This report summarizes findings on our latest round of unannounced inspections at four detention facilities housing ICE detainees. Because we observed immediate risks or egregious violations of detention standards at the Adelanto and Essex facilities, we issued individual reports to ICE after our visits to these two facilities and recommended ICE conduct a full review of the facilities to ensure compliance with ICE’s 2011 PBNDS. Overall, our inspections of the four detention facilities revealed violations of ICE’s detention standards and raised concerns about the environment in which detainees are held.

What We Looked AtThe Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act (IPERA) requires Federal agencies to report improper payment estimates for all programs identified as susceptible to significant improper payments. It requires agencies to limit improper payments to less than 10 percent of their total program payments, publish their results in the Agency Financial Report (AFR), and comply with regulations the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) developed to implement the act. IPERA also requires inspectors general to submit reports on IPERA compliance to their agency heads. For fiscal year 2018, the Department of Transportation (DOT) reported approximately $46 billion in payments in programs or activities susceptible to significant improper payments. In addition, DOT estimated that about $1 billion of those payments were improper payments. We reviewed DOT's improper payment testing results for FY 2018 to determine whether DOT complied with IPERA's requirements as implemented by OMB.What We FoundWhile DOT completed most of its FY 2018 requirements, it did not meet one reduction target, and thus did not comply with IPERA. Specifically, the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Highway Planning and Construction (HPC) program did not meet its reduction target. FHWA projected the amount of HPC improper payments to be approximately $997 million, or 2.22 percent--1.72 percent higher than FHWA's reduction target of 0.5 percent. The Department did comply with the remaining IPERA requirements; for example, it published an AFR that included improper payment estimates for all programs and activities identified as susceptible to significant improper payments, as well as programmatic corrective action plans. Overall, DOT has taken steps and implemented internal controls to prevent, reduce, and recapture improper payments, and the payment integrity information in DOT's AFR was accurate and complete.Our RecommendationsDOT concurred with our recommendation and provided an appropriate action and completion date. Accordingly, we consider the recommendation resolved but open pending completion of the planned action.

The Postal Service began allowing a few private companies to sell printed postage in the late 1990s. Over the ensuing 20 years, PC Postage grew from a niche business serving mostly small mailers to an established one serving mostly large package shippers. The number of providers did not grow, however. Today, there are only four. The two largest merged in 2015 when Stamps.com bought Endicia. The Postal Service has not accepted any new applicants for over a year, due to what it says is a review of its onboarding procedures. The Postal Service also has three proprietary solutions, with no usage fees, for electronic postage.In this white paper, the OIG explored various aspects of the Postal Service’s business relationship with PC Postage providers.

Our audit objective was to determine whether the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Education (Virgin Islands DOE) has effectively designed internal controls for the administration of Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations (Restart) program funds. Our audit covered May 14, 2018, the date the U.S. Department of Education awarded a Restart grant to the Virgin Islands DOE, through December 21, 2018. We found that the Virgin Islands DOE must enhance its designed system of internal controls to ensure that it will properly administer Restart program funds and meet program objectives. Specifically, we found that the Virgin Islands DOE’s fiscal and programmatic monitoring processes do not provide reasonable assurance that it will spend Restart program funds timely or that it will conduct effective monitoring of Restart program performance. In addition, we found that the Virgin Islands DOE has not staffed its Internal Audit Division in accordance with planned staffing levels. Also, we found that the Internal Audit Division does not have standard operating procedures. The Virgin Islands DOE also does not have processes to assess fraud risks and report fraud.