Federal Reports

The expansion of benefits under the PACT Act of 2022 necessitated VBA increasing capacity to process the influx of claims. By September 2023, VBA had sought to hire 2,520 claims processors—veterans service representatives and rating veterans service representatives—and reported exceeding its goal by hiring 3,279 claims processors. The OIG conducted this audit to determine whether VBA followed required steps to hire qualified claims processors using PACT Act funds. In addition, the OIG calculated the attrition rates for claims processors and evaluated measures VBA implemented to retain these staff.

The OIG found VBA’s human resources staff generally followed the required steps to hire qualified claims processors using PACT Act funds from October 1, 2022, through September 30, 2023. In just 2 percent of hires, applicants received an official job offer before their screening results were available; nevertheless, rushing official job offers puts VBA at risk of hiring someone who may not be suitable for federal service. Also, although overall time frames were met, the time to onboard—from acceptance of a tentative offer to starting work—exceeded the guidelines.

As for attrition, the OIG determined the median tenure of claims processors who resigned from VBA during the period in question was about 10 to 12 months, just when they have gained proficiency. Consequently, VBA may not recoup the considerable resources invested in recruiting, hiring, and training staff for this critical position. VBA’s Office of Human Capital Services developed a retention program in July 2022, but participation was voluntary and the program also lacked measurable performance indicators, preventing the OIG team from assessing its success.

The OIG made no recommendations as VBA’s existing controls appeared to ensure human resources staff follow the procedures, but the OIG reported ways to improve those procedures and ongoing retention efforts.

In January 2023, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) issued a record of decision to retire and demolish its Cumberland Fossil Plant and replace one of its two units with a natural gas plant.  Subsequently, TVA implemented the Cumberland Energy Solution (CES) project to construct a 1,450-megawatt natural gas-fueled combined cycle (CC) plant.  In August 2023, Major Projects obtained approval from the TVA Board of Directors for all related CES project funding (including transmission) totaling $2.1 billion.  Due to the importance of completing the transmission modifications to support the CC plant, we initiated an evaluation of the Cumberland CC transmission project.  Our evaluation objective was to determine if the project followed TVA’s (1) scope and (2) risk management guidelines. 

We determined the Cumberland CC transmission project complied with most elements of scope and risk management.  For example, (1) the project had completed required scoping documentation, including a project charter, work breakdown structure, and supporting schedules; (2) funds were appropriately allocated for a change in the project scope; and (3) the risk register contained required elements.  However, documentation reflected inadequate collaboration and estimating related to project cost.  In addition, risk register development did not adequately include joint project team members and some risk response owners were not aware of their monitoring responsibilities. 

Review of the Federal Labor Relations Authority’s Privacy and Data Security Policies, Procedures, and
Practices for Fiscal Year 2025

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this review to determine whether claims processors are properly assigning effective dates when considering PACT Act–related claims. After reviewing a statistical sample of 100 PACT Act–related claims completed from August 10, 2022, through August 9, 2023, the OIG estimated that incorrect effective dates were assigned for about 31,400 of 131,000 (24 percent). In an estimated 26,100 of those claims, the assigned effective date was incorrect, resulting in at least $6.8 million in improper payments. At least 2,300 additional claims had date errors, but the review team could not determine their monetary impact, as claims processors prematurely decided them without enough evidence to definitively establish correct dates.

Although determining correct effective dates for PACT Act–related claims is inherently complicated for claims processors—requiring mastery of numerous sections of the United States Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, and VBA guidance—VBA failed to effectively prepare them. VBA did not provide detailed guidance in its PACT Act–related standard operating procedure, its two automated tools were unreliable for determining effective dates, and it did not initially provide the necessary training.

When granting benefits, claims processors must determine and apply the most advantageous effective date allowed by law for each claim or benefit awarded. The proper assignment of effective dates for disability compensation benefits is vital because an incorrect effective date can have a substantial financial effect on veterans.

The OIG recommended the under secretary for benefits create a job aid for claims processors on how to determine the correct effective date for PACT Act–related claims, remove the older tool and update the newer one, assess training effectiveness by monitoring the results to assess its effectiveness, and correct all errors on cases identified by the review team.

Our objective was to assess the company’s efforts to identify and manage its risk of train strikes—incidents in which a train hits people or vehicles.

Train strikes have resulted in hundreds of fatalities and injuries in recent years and can take a heavy toll on the crew members involved—by our estimate, in fiscal year 2023, one in five of the company’s passenger engineers may have been involved in a strike.

We found that, like other railroads, the company faces inherent challenges to reducing train strikes because of factors that are difficult to control, such as suicide attempts and motorists who ignore crossing signals. Nonetheless, the company can better identify and manage train-strike related risks. It began new initiatives to do so during our audit; however, embedding ongoing initiatives into a more comprehensive, proactive risk management process could help the company better identify all major risks and make informed decisions about where to allocate its limited resources. We identified a list of key practices to aid this effort, such as collecting input from train crews about specific hazards and doing a cost-benefit analysis of different mitigation steps. The company already has many positive efforts underway that align with each of these practices. In addition, we found the data Amtrak collects on train strikes and reports to the Federal Railroad Administration had some discrepancies, which the company corrected during our audit.

We recommended that Amtrak develop a comprehensive, proactive process to identify and manage the risk of train strikes. As it institutes this process, the company should consider expanding implementation of the key practices we identified, as appropriate. We also recommend that it implement a process to regularly review and reconcile its train strike data to ensure its accuracy.
 

As part of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) oversight responsibility, we reviewed the results of prior OIG engagements that were relevant to the funded trade programs. We identified areas with reported past weaknesses and recommendations that may provide the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) insight when disbursing funds under these programs.

This report provides information about the processes that the Food and Nutrition Service uses to disburse Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits using the EBT system, as well as the related oversight activities.