Federal Reports

An Amtrak train attendant based in New Orleans, Louisiana, was terminated from employment on April 4, 2022, following his administrative hearing. The employee was terminated after our investigation resulted in criminal charges for making false statements and theft of government funds. He pleaded guilty to these charges on April 27, 2022.Our investigation found the former employee fraudulently received unemployment benefits provided under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. The employee was not eligible to receive the funds as he was employed by Amtrak during this time and the loan application form he submitted contained false information. The employee received an $89,583 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan by falsifying information in the loan application. He will be sentenced at a future date.

In September 2021, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported on large quantities of unopened mail being stored in the warehouse basement of the VA medical facility in Atlanta. The OIG conducted a review that found the Atlanta VA Health Care System (HCS) had formed a task force to open, sort, and process stacks of mail reportedly piled as high as 10 feet and dating back at least 10 months. When opened, the 17,660 pieces of mail contained medical records, claims, nearly $207,000 in checks, and correspondence from veterans.The mail backlog began accruing after a November 2020 verbal agreement between Atlanta VA HCS officials and VHA’s Payment Operations and Management (POM) personnel. The agreement called for POM staff to vacate space in a building leased by the medical facility where POM was processing mail if Atlanta VA HCS personnel took over the responsibility for processing that mail.The OIG determined that VA should have established a formal agreement clearly detailing each office’s responsibilities. VA HCS leaders did not include responsible managers in decision making discussions and lacked a clear understanding of the volume of mail processing work they were accepting. Atlanta VA HCS did not ensure mailroom staff were adequately prepared or trained to handle or sort the influx of mail, and POM officials were later reluctant to help, citing the verbal agreement.Given the mail mismanagement in Atlanta, VHA should ascertain the effects the mail processing delays had on veterans and community care providers and take corrective action. Because POM is implementing similar transitions at sites across the country, POM and medical facilities need to ensure there is adequate staff with sufficient training to handle the mail processing workload. VA concurred with the OIG’s five recommendations.

We conducted a performance audit of three National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awards issued to the Arizona Commission on the Arts (Commission) – Awards No. 17-6100-2062 (2017award), 180989-61-18 (2018 award), and 1855979-61-19 (2019 award). Based on our review, wedetermined that the Commission generally met the financial and compliance requirementsestablished in the award documents. However, we also determined the following areas requireimprovement. Specifically, the Commission:1. Reported $36,483 in costs incurred outside the award period on its FFRs - $4,272 for the2018 award and $32,211 for the 2019 award;2. Did not report a subaward that met the Federal Financial Accountability andTransparency Act reporting requirement; and3. Did not verify potential contractors were eligible to participate in Federal awards.Based on our review, we are questioning $36,483 in reported costs. As a result, we determinedthe Commission did not meet the cost share/match requirement for the 2018 award, resulting in apotential refund due to the NEA totaling $2,136. The report includes three recommendations tothe Commission and two to the NEA to address these findings. The Commission concurred withthese findings and recommendations.

The owner of Corrosion Monitoring Services (CMS), a TVA contractor, pleaded guilty to one felony count of Misprision of a Felony, one felony count of Obstruction of Justice and one felony count of Witness Tampering. The charges were related to an allegation that CMS purposefully damaged metal tubes used in an air heating and exchange system at TVA’s former Paradise Fossil Plant in order to repair those tubes under the CMS contract with TVA.

What We Looked AtWhile track-caused rail accident numbers and rates have declined over the past 2 decades, defective track conditions are still among the most frequent causes of train derailments. The Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Track Division deploys track inspectors and its Automated Track Inspection Program (ATIP) to determine whether railroads are complying with minimum safety requirements for railroad track. Given the impact of track conditions on railroad safety, we initiated this audit to evaluate FRA’s use of automated inspections to aid track safety oversight. What We FoundFRA deploys eight ATIP inspection vehicles to monitor track conditions nationally and recently took actions to improve the program’s operation and oversight. However, the Agency’s formal program metric for ATIP vehicle utilization is outdated. Specifically, FRA contracts out operation of these vehicles to two contractors but only established a single utilization goal to run the ATIP vehicles 150 survey days a year. While some ATIP vehicles came close to the goal individually, collectively the ATIP fleet fell short, with an average 80-percent utilization between fiscal years 2016 and 2021. FRA officials offered several reasons, including weather events, to explain the missed goal. In addition, over half of the 539 ATIP-related inspection reports we reviewed contain inaccurate data—in part because FRA does not have sufficient guidance on recording ATIP-related inspection activities. FRA also relies on inspectors to respond promptly to changing conditions and use their territory knowledge in planning their work but does not have any national or formal district-level track inspection planning processes in place. However, FRA does use ATIP vehicles and survey data to perform data-driven evaluations of railroad track testing programs and improve its data inventories. Until FRA improves ATIP utilization goals and ATIP-related track inspection reporting, it cannot ensure its resources are optimally targeted to support the Agency’s track oversight. Our RecommendationsFRA concurred with all six of our recommendations to improve its use of automated inspections to aid track safety oversight and provided appropriate actions and completion dates. We consider these recommendations resolved but open, pending completion of planned actions.