Federal Reports

We determined that FEMA did not manage disaster relief grants and funds adequately and did not hold grant recipients accountable for properly managing disaster relief funds. We identified persistent problems such as improper contract costs and ineligible and unsupported expenditures as examples of this continued failure. During FY 2016, we identified $155.6 million, or 23 percent, in questioned costs out of the $686 million that we audited, which we recommended FEMA disallow as ineligible and unsupported costs. Further, FEMA still does not hold grant recipients accountable for failing to provide adequate monitoring or technical assistance to subgrantees.

The Postal Service’s scanned package volume increased from 3.5 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2015 to 4.3 billion in FY 2016 – an increase of 22 percent. From July 1 through December 31, 2016, the Postal Service scanned over 2 billion packages sent to over 136 million delivery locations on over 227,092 routes throughout the country. This audit was self-initiated based on our data analytics indicating an increasing number of questionable or improper delivery scans occurring at delivery units and about 1.4 million customer complaints in FY 2017 related to delivery.

Serve Washington administered $40,328,621 of AmeriCorps funds during the three years ending September 30, 2016. Serve Washington awarded subgrants to 17 organizations and was responsible for programmatic and financial oversight. The agreed-upon procedures (AUP) review included two subgrants—Kitsap Community Resources (KCR) and the Washington State Employment Security Department (ESD), including ESD’s two AmeriCorps programs, the Washington State Reading Corps and the Washington State Service Corps.Cotton & Company LLP found improper and unsupported costs claimed by the two subrecipients totaling $511,070 ($140,231 in Federal costs and $230,646 in match costs), plus an additional $136,773 in questioned education awards and $3,420 in accrued interest. No Serve Washington Commission incurred costs were questioned.The fieldwork found deficiencies with documenting claimed costs, with National Service Criminal History Checks, inaccurate timesheet recording and certifying, AmeriCorps service considered an added bonus to summer work, inadequate supervision of members recording teleservice and/or weekend service, and incomplete end of term evaluations. Serve Washington concurred with some findings and provided explanations for others. Corporation for National & Community Service Management will work with Serve Washington to resolve the findings.

Our objective was to assess the efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service’s transportation consolidation of mail (loading, unloading, and trailer utilization) for long-haul Highway Contract Routes (HCR) for the Chicago and San Francisco Network Distribution Centers (NDC). We determined the Postal Service’s consolidation of long-haul HCR trips for the Chicago and San Francisco CDFs was inefficient.

Treasury OIG Travel Inquiry Memorandum to Inspector General Thorson