Federal Reports

Other than the deficiency described in Finding 2, nothing came to our attention indicating that Orleans Parish did not design and implement policies and procedures that are likely to provide reasonable assurance that previously reported, Title I-relevant findings would not reoccur. Orleans Parish implemented a new financial management system, developed a grants management policy requiring adequately documented personnel and nonpersonnel expenditures, and revised its policies and procedures for purchasing and contracting, using district-held credit cards, and limiting user access to the financial management system (see Finding 1).However, Orleans Parish did not design and implement procedures that provided reasonable assurance that expenditures for services provided to nonpublic school students and charged to Title I funds were allowable. Specifically, Orleans Parish did not verify that educational services providers delivered the Title I services to nonpublic school students as asserted on invoices and supporting documentation. In fiscal year 2017 (July 1 through June 30), contracts with these educational services providers accounted for 26 percent ($3.7 million) of Orleans Parish’s $14.1 million Title I allocation.

The Office of Inspector General evaluated the Agency’s fiscal year 2017 compliance with the Improper Payments Information Act.

The OIG investigated allegations that U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) employees improperly awarded a sole-source security services contract at a dam, received kickbacks for rigging the contract bidding process, and approved inflated invoices.Our investigation found no evidence that USBR employees improperly awarded the contract or received kickbacks for rigging the contract bidding process.We referred the allegations of inflated invoices to our Office of Audits, Inspections, and Evaluations, which audited the contract for compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The findings of that audit will be issued in a separate report.

The Missouri Department of Social Services (State agency) did not comply with Federal and State requirements prohibiting Medicaid payments for inpatient hospital services related to treating certain provider-preventable conditions (PPCs), which are certain reasonably preventable conditions caused by medical accidents or errors in a health care setting. The State agency did not follow the provision of its Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)-approved State plan directing it to perform a retrospective clinical review of the claims with diagnosis codes identified as PPCs. In addition, the State agency paid inpatient hospital claims in which the present-on-admission (POA) indicator data field had been left blank. We identified inpatient hospital claims totaling $2.7 million ($1.7 million Federal share) that contained a diagnosis code identified as a PPC and (1) a POA code indicating that the condition was not present on admission, (2) a POA code indicating that the documentation in the patient’s medical record was insufficient to determine whether the condition was present on admission, or (3) no POA code. Therefore, we are setting aside this amount for resolution by CMS and the State agency.