Federal Reports

Recently stakeholders have expressed an interest in understanding how other major posts’ prices are regulated and how posts manage the relationship between price regulation, profitability, and service. The OIG worked with WIK-Consult to provide research on how postal prices are regulated in five other countries. We found that in all of the five countries, price regulation has recently become more flexible in two ways – through a reduction of scope of products that fall under price regulation or allowance of higher price increases on regulated products.

The University of California at Riverside's (the University) prior effort-reporting system did not always provide the information needed to confirm that payroll costs had been appropriately allocated to Federal awards, and its current payroll certification system pilot (pilot PCS) provided less accountability over payroll charges to Federal awards than its prior effort-reporting system. Effort reporting is a person-based methodology that allocates each employee's reasonable estimate of time worked on all awards and other activities. Specifically, the pilot PCS did not comply with requirements of Circular A-21 and, as designed, limited the ability of the University and the Department of Health and Human Services to provide oversight of these funds. On the basis of our sample, we estimated that the University put at risk $11.7 million in salaries and $5.9 million in associated facilities and administrative costs claimed against National Institutes of Health awards.

The Office of Inspector General examined NASA’s efforts to protect its critical infrastructure and related operational control systems from cyber threats.

In accordance with our fiscal year 2017 annual plan, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an evaluation to determine whether (1) the United States Capitol Police (USCP or Department) complied with its hiring standards and ensured that employees did not engage in criminal conduct detrimental to their employment, (2) USCP employees with a criminal history before employment with USCP disclosed that history during the pre-employment screening process, and (3) employees with criminal complaints during employment with USCP complied with USCP Directives by reporting incidents through the appropriate chain of command.