Federal Reports

Why We Did This ReportWe are alerting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the need to ensure that mobile devices for separating employees are properly preserved and timely accessible to the Office of Inspector General to prevent the loss of evidence and other relevant records. Summary The EPA OIG is conducting an administrative investigation of a senior official for alleged ethics violations. In 2024, we notified the EPA Office of Mission Support that the senior official intended to leave, or separate from, the Agency in 2024, and we requested that the OMS preserve the information on the senior official’s electronic devices. Upon the senior official’s separation 30 days later, the OMS received five electronic devices from the official but failed to retain the three mobile devices in a way that would allow us or the Agency to access the information stored on them. As a result, we have been unable to retrieve the information and any potential federal records on these devices that may be relevant to our investigation, including text messages, telephone contact lists, and other forms of messaging. We are concerned that this is not an isolated issue.

For our audit on U.S. Department of Commerce (Department) locality pay, our objective was to determine whether the Department ensures employees are paid the correct locality pay in accordance with applicable regulations and policy. We found that I. Department personnel did not timely initiate or process changes in employee duty stations and II. the Department could not demonstrate that all teleworking employees reported to the office as required by their telework agreements.

Objective: To determine whether the Social Security Administration oversees its employees’ outside employment to mitigate the risk of conflicts of interest and employee misconduct.

OIG reviewed and analyzed USDA default credentials vulnerability scans and followed up on a related prior audit recommendation. We also reviewed and evaluated the Department's policies and procedures, and we interviewed responsible USDA officials. OIG made three recommendations to OCIO and reached management decision on each of them.