Federal Reports

We determined that the County’s accounting policies, procedures, and business practices appear adequate to account for FEMA grant funds according to Federal regulations and FEMA guidelines. However, the County could benefit from Florida, as FEMA’s grant recipient, providing additional technical assistance and monitoring of its pending projects

We determined that Downe Township did not always follow Federal procurement standards in awarding contracts for disaster work. We recommended that FEMA disallow $832,040 of $2.5 million in grant funds awarded to the Township. The Township did not have support for $445,385 of the questioned costs. We also recommended that the Administrator, FEMA Region II, deobligate unused project costs, and withhold $2.3 million in funds requested for additional project work until New Jersey provides assurance that the Township complies with all Federal procurement standards for FEMA funded work. FEMA Region II concurred with all of our recommendations.

This report contains the results of our audit of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) Fast Track Recall Program (Fast Track). The purpose of Fast Track is to remove potentially hazardous products from the marketplace as quickly and efficiently as possible. Overall, we found Fast Track is effective in getting unsafe products off the market quickly and efficiently.

At the request of Senator Bill Nelson, OIG conducted a healthcare review to address questions regarding VA suicide prevention efforts and suicide data collection:• How do you know if VA’s suicide prevention programs are working and what percent of veterans who die by suicide have been under the care of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA)?• Are data on suicides turned over to mental health providers in real time; what risk factors associated with higher veteran suicides are being explored in-depth, and by whom; and what ways can be identified to gather more reliable suicide data?We found that VHA tracked suicide rates of veterans and other VHA users by matching suicide deaths from the National Death Index; state-based reporting and Suicide Prevention Applications Network initiatives may not have included the full population of veteran suicides; and the VA/Department of Defense (DOD) Suicide Data Repository was developed. We found that real time data was not available to mental health providers in all states; VHA implemented a predictive analytics risk model; and non-VA researchers analyzed military service members’ social media posts for mental health status changes/suicidal ideation to determine suicide risk factors. We found that Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 2 Center of Excellence and VISN 19 Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center had over 20 suicide prevention research studies and projects; reliability of suicide data was contingent on usage of clear, standardized terminology; training was critical for persons responsible for completing the medical portion of the death certificate; and VHA and DOD Suicide Prevention program staff were developing a sharing agreement to establish a routine method to transfer data. This OIG review was informational and had no recommendations.

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Seek link below for the full report, report summary, multimedia or any agency follow-up.

The OIG used data analytics to identify offices with lost or stolen stamp stock shipments. We identified three expenses totaling $27,429 related to stamp stock shipments for the Bensalem, PA, Post Office and the Croydon Post Office, a small post office whose stamp stock is shipped to the Bensalem Post Office, between May 1, 2016, and April 30, 2017.