Federal Reports

The OIG investigated allegations that a former National Park Service (NPS) contract specialist steered three contracts to a vendor because of a personal relationship.We found that the contract specialist had a personal relationship with the vendor’s employees and attempted to influence contract awards by inappropriately advocating for the vendor, which violated Federal ethics regulations. We found, however, that the contract specialist ultimately had no influence over awarding contracts to the vendor and that the contracts were awarded properly. We also found that while the contract specialist managed the vendor’s contracts, he sought employment with the vendor for a family member, but the family member was never hired.The contract specialist left the Department after learning of our investigation. We referred our findings to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado, which declined prosecution.

This semiannual report informs Congress of the Peace Corps Office of Inspector General's work for April 1, 2018 to September 30, 2018.

o We intended to verify whether the U.S. Coast Guard is properly reporting service members who are prohibited from possessing a firearm (“prohibited individuals”) to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). However, in comparing relevant databases with data into the National Instant Background Check System (NICS), We identified a number of issues that led us to question the reliability of the Coast Guard’s data. As a result, OIG cannot identify the full scope of prohibited individuals or verify that the Coast Guard properly reported prohibited individuals to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and to Congress. Despite our concerns about the quality of Coast Guard’s data, OIG identified 210 service members who committed offenses that placed them in one of the categories of prohibited individuals. Of these 210, Coast Guard did not enter 16 service members (8 percent) into NCIS. This underreporting occurred because Coast Guard policy did not require attorneys to forward information about all individuals referred for trial by general court martial for reporting to the FBI. Additionally, Coast Guard’s reporting to the FBI is centralized, and does not allow investigators in field offices to have direct access to NICS. We made eight recommendations that will enhance Coast Guard’s reporting of prohibited individuals to the FBI. The Coast Guard concurred with the recommendations.

At Congressman Bill Posey’s request, the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a healthcare inspection at the Orlando VA Medical Center, Florida, following allegations that a patient died while experiencing a delay in obtaining approval for surgery outside VA. It was additionally alleged that the facility failed to timely approve, process, and coordinate non-VA care coordination (NVCC) consults, and these delays were causing adverse clinical outcomes The patient died prior to receiving scheduled heart surgery for asymptomatic severe aortic stenosis (narrowing of a heart valve); however, the OIG did not substantiate that the death occurred because of a long delay in approval for NVCC services. Facility staff complied with consult processing and scheduling guidelines when coordinating an evaluation with an NVCC provider, except for the 46 days that elapsed between the time the NVCC provider submitted a request for additional services (RAS) and acknowledgement of the request by the facility The OIG substantiated delays in the processing of other thoracic surgery NVCC consults entered during a 10-month period in 2017 related to an increase in the number of consults and limited staff available to process consults. The OIG did not identify adverse clinical outcomes associated with the delays. Problems were identified with providers’ assigning of clinically indicated dates (CID) and staff adhering to the assigned CIDs. The facility lacked a mechanism to track RASs. The OIG concluded the absence of a fully implemented tool to assist with care coordination increased the possibility of disruptions in the care coordination for the NVCC patients. Six recommendations were made related to a practitioner’s care who evaluated the patient six months prior to death, implementation of a tool to track the NVCC process, evaluation of providers’ assignments of CIDs, tracking of RASs, and ensuring NVCC appointments are scheduled within 30 days of CID.

We audited the City of San Bernardino, CA’s HOME Investment Partnerships program. We audited the City based on the Region 9 Office of Inspector General’s 2016 risk analysis of Los Angeles area community planning and development grantees. In addition, although the County of San Bernardino had been administering the City’s recent HOME grants, the City still had several of its own HOME activities underway and others that had closed within the past 2 years. Our audit objective was to determine whether the City administered its HOME program in accordance with HUD requirements.The City did not fully administer its HOME program in accordance with HUD requirements. For the most part, the City used its HOME funding in accordance with program requirements. However, accounting and drawdown errors resulted in $22,402 in duplicative overcharges to the program. This error was due to the City’s not having adequate policies, procedures, and controls to ensure that HOME draws were accurate and in accordance with HUD requirements. As a result, these funds were not available to carry out eligible HOME activities.We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Los Angeles Office of Community Planning and Development require the City to (1) repay its program $22,402 for erroneous costs charged to HOME activity 2292 from non-Federal funds and (2) update and implement changes to its policies and procedures to prevent similar errors and ensure that HOME draws are accurate and in accordance with HUD requirements.