Federal Reports

The lack of board members continues to be the biggest risk to CSB operations.

The lack of board members continues to be the biggest risk to CSB operations.

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Program report highlights the results of a focused evaluation of VHA facilities’ high-risk processes. The report describes findings from healthcare inspections performed at 45 medical facilities during fiscal year 2021 that focused on selected management of disruptive and violent behavior requirements. Each inspection involved interviews with key staff and reviews of clinical and administrative processes.The OIG found general compliance with many of the selected requirements. However, the OIG identified weaknesses with and issued three recommendations related to• required members’ attendance at disruptive behavior committee or board meetings,• patient notification of Orders of Behavioral Restriction, and• completion of required training.

As part of a Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) Disaster Assistance Working Group cross-cutting initiative, we summarized the conclusions, findings, and recommendations of 28 reports related to the Federal Government’s natural disaster preparedness and response issued by 7 Offices of Inspector General (OIGs). The seven participating OIGs included U.S. Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Transportation and the U.S. Small Business Administration. Many of these reports focused on the Federal Government’s preparedness to respond to the devastating 2017 hurricanes.The 28 OIG reports, issued between June 2015 and November 2021, made 89 recommendations to the Federal agencies and grant recipients, including recapturing questioned costs, strengthening internal controls, maintaining adequate oversight of contractors and grants, and complying with Federal regulations. Agencies should learn from the results of these reports and implement controls and systems to limit future obstacles to spending disaster funds efficiently and effectively.Click below to read more about each management challenge. Challenge 1: Performance Management and AccountabilityChallenge 2: Human Capital ManagementChallenge 3: Financial ManagementChallenge 4: Procurement ManagementChallenge 5: Grant ManagementChallenge 6: Homeland Security and Disaster PreparednessChallenge 7: Information Technology Security and ManagementAppendix B Click here to access the full report. To access the CIGIE's 2021 Top Management and Performance Challenges Facing Multiple Federal Agencies report, click here.

A U.S. Postal Service money order is a financial document similar to U.S. currency and is sold by Postal Service window clerks. Customers can purchase money orders for a fee in varying amounts and redeem them at any post office. Although the Postal Service categorizes money orders as market dominant products, they can be purchased from certain commercial banks and money transfer agencies such as Western Union and MoneyGram. The maximum amount for a single Postal Service, Western Union, or MoneyGram domestic money order is $1,000.What We Did

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Program report highlights the results of an evaluation of VHA facilities’ mental health programs. The report describes findings from healthcare inspections performed at 44 medical facilities during fiscal year 2021 that focused on suicide risk screening and evaluation processes in emergency departments and urgent care centers. Each inspection involved interviews with key staff and reviews of clinical and administrative processes. The OIG found general compliance with most of the selected requirements. However, the OIG identified a weakness with the completion of mandatory training by staff who develop suicide safety plans and issued one recommendation. Lack of training could prevent staff from providing optimal treatment to veterans who are at risk for suicide.

We performed a review of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) monitoring and tracking of Continuum of Care (CoC) grantees that have been slow to spend their grant funds. Our objectives were to determine whether HUD was effectively tracking and monitoring CoC grant spending and to determine the impact of COVID-19 on CoC grantee spending.HUD generally tracked and monitored its grantees; however, it did not prioritize grantees that encountered challenges in spending their CoC grant funds before the grants expired. This condition occurred because HUD did not have written guidance that detailed how field offices should review grantees for spending issues. Between 2017 and 2020 HUD recaptured nearly $257 million from CoC grantees that had not fully spent their funds. While several factors outside of HUD’s control contributed to the spending challenges, improved tracking and monitoring could help ensure that the grantees timely address those factors and mitigate their impact. Without proactive measures, grantee spending challenges will likely continue, leading to unused funds that could otherwise have gone toward addressing homelessness. In addition, although the pandemic did impact how CoC grantees carried out their programs and some grants had to be temporarily put on hold, overall nationwide CoC grant fund spending was not significantly impacted in the long term by COVID-19.We recommend that the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Operations for HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) implement written procedures to ensure consistency among field offices in reviewing spending, potentially preventing up to an estimated $47 million in annual CoC recaptures. In addition, we recommend that CPD’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Special Needs Programs design and implement a strategy-intensive training program for grantees.

This interim report presents the results of our self-initiated audit of mail delivery, customer service, and property conditions at the Kearny Main Post Office (MPO) in Kearny, NJ (Project Number 22-170-2). The Kearny MPO is in the New Jersey District of the Atlantic Area and services ZIP Codes 07031 and 07032. These ZIP Codes serve about 56,039 people and are considered to be urban areas. We judgmentally selected the Kearny MPO based on the number of Stop-the-Clock (STC) scans occurring at the delivery unit, rather than at the customer’s point of delivery, and indicators for undelivered mail.