Federal Reports

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Healthcare Facility Inspection program report describes the results of a focused evaluation of the care provided at Fargo VA Health Care System in North Dakota. 

This evaluation focused on five key content domains:
   •    Culture
   •    Environment of care
   •    Patient safety
   •    Primary care
   •    Veteran-centered safety net

The OIG issued no recommendations.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Nuclear organization has a vision to be the top nuclear fleet by the end of fiscal year 2025 and an initiative to sustain top quartile performance.  Selection of suppliers responsible for maintenance or system upgrades within TVA’s nuclear fleet can affect TVA’s ability to maintain top quartile performance and achieve TVA Nuclear’s vision.  Two departments essential for making supplier selections are each plant’s respective Site Projects group and TVA’s Supply Chain (SC) organization.  Through soliciting vendors and evaluating vendor bids, these departments are responsible for obtaining the best value to TVA.  Because of the importance of supplier selections, we initiated an evaluation of solicitation and bid evaluation activities for Sequoyah Nuclear Plant (SQN).  The objective of our evaluation was to determine if solicitation and bid evaluation processes were performed in accordance with TVA’s policies and procedures for electrical, maintenance, and modifications services contracts at SQN. 

The Office of the Inspector General determined solicitation and bid evaluation processes were not performed in accordance with TVA’s policies and procedures for electrical, maintenance, and modifications project implementation at SQN as follows:

• Solicitations were not performed in compliance with TVA procedures.  Specifically, (1) requirements related to direct awarding of projects were not followed, (2) SC was not always involved in the solicitation process, and (3) adequate information (such as technical specifications, commercial pricing terms, and answers to bidders’ questions) was not always provided to vendors.
• Bid evaluation procedures were not always followed.  Specifically, (1) SC was not always involved in the commercial evaluations and (2) independent estimates were not always obtained to assess the reasonableness of vendor proposals. 
• Ineffective bid evaluation practices resulted in an inadequate bid evaluation and evaluation scoring that was based on incorrect or inadequate criteria.

The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO), Office of the Inspector General (OIG), investigated an allegation of time and attendance fraud involving a GPO employee, including claims that the employee was ineligible for telework.

In early 2021, AmeriCorps received $1 billion in supplemental funding under the American Rescue Plan (ARP) primarily to award grants in support of its programs. These funds were to remain available until September 30, 2024. On June 3, 2023, however, Congress rescinded all unobligated AmeriCorps ARP program funds. As part of our oversight of ARP funds, the AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General (AmeriCorps OIG) identified more than 100 Notices of Grant Award involving ARP funds issued after June 3, 2023. Although AmeriCorps’ position is that these grants could still be awarded because they were obligated prior to the recission when the CEO certified the award package containing the grants, the certification dates were not recorded in AmeriCorps’ systems or clearly articulated in its policies and procedures, resulting in AmeriCorps’ inability to accurately determine the status of funds. Our review also determined that Federal appropriation law, relevant precedent, and AmeriCorps’ own accounting treatment of when grant funds are obligated raise concerns that more than $144 million in ARP funds are at risk of having been obligated after they were rescinded by Congress. This alert highlights the need for AmeriCorps to seek a formal opinion from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) regarding whether AmeriCorps obligated rescinded ARP funds and to improve its policies, documentation, and recording of all key steps in its grant award process.