Federal Reports

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed the administrative and clinical responses by facility leaders and staff to allegations of a patient’s report of sexual harassment at the VA Black Hills Health Care System (facility) in Fort Meade and Hot Springs, South Dakota.A patient participating in the Compensated Work Therapy program and the Transitional Residence program reported being sexually harassed by a food service coworker and subsequently died by suicide. The patient initially reported being sexually harassed to a Transitional Residence staff member while a permanent employee residing in a Transitional Residence house. Later that same year, the patient reported to the VA police that the sexual harassment began while participating in the Compensated Work Therapy program. Participants in Compensated Work Therapy and Transitional Residence programs are considered patients and not employees.The OIG determined facility leaders did not take administrative actions that aligned with policy when the patient reported being sexually harassed. Facility leaders understood that the interactions occurred after hours, off VA property, and between two employees, and therefore, no action could be taken. Although the Compensated Work Therapy and Transitional Residence program manager knew that the patient was a participant in the Transitional Residence program, and therefore considered a patient, the program manager took no action, such as speaking with the patient, upon learning of the patient’s report of sexual harassment.The OIG determined that the Transitional Resident staff member and counselor provided clinical support.The OIG made three recommendations related to the reviews of the sexual harassment policy and the actions of the Transitional Residence program manager, and to ensure that the facility policy addresses the safety and rights of patients who are both VA employees and participants in the Transitional Residence program.

The lack of vulnerability scans increases the risk that vulnerabilities are not identified and remediated in a timely manner and could result in data loss or disruption to Agency operations.

What We Looked AtThe Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employs approximately 5,000 maintenance technicians who install, maintain, repair, and certify roughly 74,000 pieces of equipment in the National Airspace System. Citing concerns with staffing and training for this important workforce, the House Committee on Appropriations directed our office to assess the Agency’s plans for hiring, training, and placing maintenance technicians. Previously, we reported on FAA’s process for hiring and placement. Our objective for this review was to evaluate FAA’s process for prioritizing and providing training to maintenance technicians. What We FoundFAA projects training and hiring requirements only 1 year in advance and does not proactively identify and prioritize maintenance technician training and hiring needs in anticipation of pending retirements. According to Federal internal control standards, management should consider how best to plan for employees’ eventual departure and retain needed skills and abilities. As a result, FAA has developed workforce plans for air traffic controllers and aviation safety inspectors that target training and hiring needs 10 years in advance—but does not do so for maintenance technicians. It takes 1.5 years on average to promote a newly hired maintenance technician to the journeyman level, so 1 year of advance planning is not adequate to prepare for future workforce needs. Two FAA lines of business that fall under three different vice presidents are responsible for the maintenance technician training process, which makes it difficult to establish a collaborative training process and make budgetary decisions. Travel funding and other factors have also hindered FAA’s ability to increase the number of technicians who can receive training in a given year. Although the Agency is using e-learning options, it has not documented lessons learned or formally analyzed student feedback to determine course formats. The lack of a strategic approach hinders FAA’s ability to develop a sustainable workforce model. Our RecommendationsWe made four recommendations to improve FAA’s approach to prioritizing and providing technical training to maintenance technicians. FAA concurred with all four recommendations.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.