Federal Reports

The objective of our evaluation was to determine whether all Military Services Law Enforcement Organizations (LEOs) had submitted fingerprint cards and final disposition reports for Military Service members convicted by court-martial of qualifying offenses, as required by DoD instruction. We reviewed these submissions for the period from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2016.

OIG received an anonymous allegation that Veterans Service Center (VSC) staff at the Roanoke VA Regional Office (VARO) combined appeals to lower the pending inventory and achieve production goals by entering incorrect data into VA’s electronic system. OIG reviewed 331 appeal records that were closed indicating they were withdrawn by appellants. OIG determined 278 were improperly closed because the electronic record did not contain any evidence of a withdrawal request by the appellant. In 276 of the 278 closed appeal records, the pending issues were merged with other open appeal records. In two cases, appeals management and staff failed to add all pending issues to other open appeal records. Both of these appeal records were reactivated as a result of OIG’s review. Merging issues into one record was a longstanding practice at the Roanoke VARO to reduce the pending workload. VARO and VSC management were unaware of this practice, and appeals managers knew of it but were unaware of its full impact. Merging appeal records gave a false impression that the appeals inventory decreased. Subsequently, the reported statistics for the number of pending and completed appeals at the Roanoke VARO were inaccurate, and the associated timeliness measurements were unreliable. OIG could not determine what the VARO’s actual statistics should have been since staff appeared to have been following this guidance from at least September 2008. OIG recommended the Roanoke VARO Director conduct a review to identify prematurely closed appeal records and confer with appropriate Veterans Benefits Administration officials to determine the proper corrective actions to take, if any. OIG also recommended the Director confer with regional counsel to determine what steps to take, if any, with regard to management or staff involved in the conduct discussed in this report. The VARO Director concurred with our recommendations and planned corrective actions are responsive.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) intended to expand TSA PreCheck to 25 million air travelers at a rate of more than 5 million enrollments per year. We evaluated whether the current TSA PreCheck Application Program adjudication process will allow TSA to meet its enrollment goals. TSA did not allocate additional resources or staff to the TSA Adjudication Center, which had multiple vacancies and was tasked with manually processing about 26 percent of TSA PreCheck Application Program applications. To make matters worse, in June 2016, TSA PreCheck applications surged, leaving the Adjudication Center overwhelmed with applications to process. As the application queue grew, TSA brought on detailees from other Federal agencies to assist with adjudications part time, but they did not have a significant impact. Further, the Adjudication Center relies on a manual caseload assignment and reporting process, which is inefficient for the volume of TSA PreCheck applications needing adjudication.

We determined that Osceola generally complied with Federal regulations and FEMA guidelines in accounting for and expending Federal (FEMA) grant funds. However, Osceola’s procurement procedures were not adequate to meet minimum Federal standards and to address the key procurement element of ensuring no award is made to any party debarred or suspended from Federal assistance programs. Despite this, we are not questioning costs because no contracts were awarded to debarred or suspended contractors and Osceola took corrective measures to include contractor verification in all future awards for disaster-related projects. The report contains no recommendations and we did not identify issues requiring further action from FEMA. Therefore, we consider this audit closed.

We determined that the County has in place policies, procedures, and business practices to generally account for and expend FEMA Public Assistance grant funds according to Federal regulations and FEMA guidelines. The County can account for disaster-related costs on a project-by-project basis and adequately support these costs. In addition, the County’s procurement policies, procedures, and practices are consistent with Federal procurement standards. Therefore, if the County follows those policies, procedures, and business practices; FEMA has reasonable, but not absolute, assurance that the County will properly manage the FEMA Public Assistance grant funds according to Federal regulations. Because the audit did not identify any reportable issues, we are not requiring any further action from FEMA.

This is a Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General (OIG) special report on Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and FEMA recipient and sub recipient disaster-related procurements. FEMA is currently responding to some of the most catastrophic disasters in U.S. history — Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, and the October 2017, California wildfires. Because of the massive scale of damage and the large number and high-dollar contracts that will likely be awarded, there is a significant risk that billions of taxpayer dollars may be exposed to waste, fraud, and abuse.

We determined that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) properly awarded the FCMP contracts and in most cases complied with applicable laws, regulations, and guidance during the acquisition process. Specifically, ICE promoted fair and open vendor competition during the family case management services solicitation process by publicly issuing notices and requests for proposals. In addition, ICE evaluated vendor proposals in accordance with established criteria and selected the vendor based on a comparative evaluation of proposals, which were adequately documented in the contract file. The report contained no recommendations.