Federal Reports

This final report documents the results of our audit of the effectiveness of selected Commerce bureaus unliquidated obligation (ULO) review policies and procedures developed since our OIG audit report issued on June 18, 2013, Monitoring of Obligation Balances Needs Strengthening (OIG-13-026-A). Our objective for this audit was to evaluate the effectiveness of each operating unit’s obligation and deobligation review policies and procedures implemented since the June 2013 audit report.

At the request of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Supply Chain's former Director of Sourcing, we audited costs billed to TVA by ScottMadden, Inc. (ScottMadden) under Contract Nos. 3526, 8579, and 8689. Under the contracts, ScottMadden provided consulting services that included, but were not limited to, financial management and business management services. Our audit scope included about $19.6 million in costs that ScottMadden billed to TVA from January 1, 2012, through December 31, 2015, under the three separate contracts. Our audit objectives were to determine if (1) the costs billed to TVA by ScottMadden were in compliance with the contracts' terms and (2) task authorizations awarded under the contracts were in compliance with TVA policies, processes, and procedures.In summary, we determined ScottMadden billed TVA (1) $2,077,043 for work that was performed prior to authorization and (2) $273,890 for labor categories that were not included in the pricing schedules of Contract Nos. 3526 and 8579. In addition, although ScottMadden had a higher percentage of sole-source awarded tasks than its competitors, we determined Supply Chain was following its intended competitive model for the blanket contracts to obtain the best value for TVA.(Summary Only)