Federal Reports

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General, Administrative Investigations Directorate initiated an investigation into potentially improper expenditures made by Dr. Katherine A. Lemos.

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Program report describes the results of a focused evaluation of the leadership performance and oversight by Veterans Integrated Service Network 17: VA Heart of Texas Health Care Network in Arlington. This evaluation focused on five key areas of clinical and administrative operations:• Leadership and organizational risks• Quality, safety, and value• Medical staff credentialing and privileging• Environment of care• Mental health (focusing on suicide prevention)The OIG issued one recommendation for improvement in the Medical Staff Credentialing and Privileging review area regarding physicians with a potentially disqualifying licensure action.

This report presents the results of our self-initiated audit of the efficiency of operations at the Memphis Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) and Mail Processing Annex (MPA) in Memphis, TN (Project Number 23-099). We judgmentally selected the Memphis P&DC and MPA based on a review of first and last mile failures; work hours; mail volume and productivity; overall scanning performance; and late, canceled, and extra trips. The Memphis P&DC and MPA are in the Southeast Processing Division. The P&DC processes letters and flats. The MPA processes parcels. The Memphis P&DC and MPA services multiple 3-digit ZIP Codes in urban and rural communities.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this review to provide a comprehensive estimate of the potential fraud in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) pandemic assistance loan programs. Over the course of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, SBA disbursed approximately $1.2 trillion of COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds.In the rush to swiftly disburse COVID-19 EIDL and PPP funds, SBA calibrated its internal controls. The agency weakened or removed the controls necessary to prevent fraudsters from easily gaining access to these programs and provide assurance that only eligible entities received funds. However, the allure of “easy money” in this pay and chase environment attracted an overwhelming number of fraudsters to the programs.We estimate that SBA disbursed over $200 billion in potentially fraudulent COVID-19 EIDLs, EIDL Targeted Advances, Supplemental Targeted Advances, and PPP loans. This means at least 17 percent of all COVID-19 EIDL and PPP funds were disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors.OIG collaboration with SBA, the U.S. Secret Service, other federal agencies, and financial institutions has resulted in nearly $30 billion in COVID-19 EIDL and PPP funds being seized or returned to SBA.