Federal Reports

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed Veterans Health Administration (VHA) assertions required by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in its fiscal year 2021 detailed accounting report and budget formulation compliance report.The OIG’s review was conducted in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards, which incorporate the attestation standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Those standards require that the OIG plan and perform the review to obtain limited assurance about whether any material modifications should be made to management’s assertions for them to be fairly stated. The OIG believes this review provides a reasonable basis for its conclusion.In the detailed accounting report, VHA reported three material weaknesses, two significant deficiencies, and five matters concerning noncompliance with laws and regulations, as identified in the OIG report, Audit of VA’s Financial Statements for Fiscal Years 2021 and 2020. A material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the entity’s financial statements will not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis. A significant deficiency is a control deficiency, or a combination of control deficiencies, that is less severe than a material weakness, yet important enough to merit attention by those charged with governance.Based on the OIG’s review, except for the effects, if any, of the matters described in the preceding paragraph, the OIG is not aware of any material modifications that should be made to VHA management’s assertions for them to be fairly stated.

In November 2021, Congress passed the VA Transparency & Trust Act of 2021 to oversee VA’s spending of emergency relief funding related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The law requires VA to report to Congress how it will spend the funding and provide biweekly updates thereafter.The law also requires the VA OIG to report within 120 days on whether VA is spending the funds according to its plan and must address waste, fraud, and abuse. This inaugural report focuses on whether the spend plans VA provided to Congress on December 22, 2021, satisfy the requirements of the Transparency Act.VA’s spend plans generally outlined how it intended to use the supplemental funds. The OIG found, however, that the National Cemetery Administration’s planned use of funds included a shrine project to raise and realign over 17,000 headstones, replace irrigation, and repair turf in the historical sections of a cemetery. The $3.6 million used for the Beaufort National Shrine project may have violated the law because the work did not appear to be directly related to COVID-19. Further, the team identified a planned use of funds that did not include a projected cost related to maintaining information technology projects. As a result, it is unclear if all planned uses are captured in VA’s obligations reported in the ARP Act plan submitted to Congress.The OIG made two recommendations to the assistant secretary for management/chief financial officer to improve the quality and sufficiency of information reported to Congress: (1) consult with appropriate VA financial and legal officials to determine whether the use of emergency funds for the shrine project violates the law and correct if necessary, and (2) determine obligations for sustaining essential information technology investments, provide an updated spending plan to Congress, and include this information in future biweekly updates.

This report presents a summary of the results of our self-initiated audits assessing mail delivery, customer service, and property conditions at four select delivery units in the Portland, OR, region (Project Number 22-001). These delivery units included the Beaverton, OR, and Vancouver, WA, Main Post Offices (MPO) and the Parkrose and Piedmont Stations in Portland, OR. We issued interim reports to district management for each of these delivery units regarding the conditions we identified. In addition, we issued a report on the efficiency of operations at the Portland Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC), which services these four delivery units.All four delivery units are in the WestPac Area. The Beaverton MPO and the Parkrose and Piedmont Stations are in the Idaho-Montana-Oregon District and the Vancouver MPO is in the Washington District. The four delivery units have a combined total of 188 city routes and 16 rural routes. Staffing at the delivery units, at the time of our audit, included 226 full-time city carriers, 64 part-time city carriers, 15 full-time rural carriers, 11 part-time rural carriers, 45 full-time clerks, and 20 part-time clerks.The delivery units service about 330,190 people in several ZIP codes which are considered predominantly urban communities.

OIG issues an Immediate Release and Advisory alerting Lifeline, Emergency Broadband Benefit, and Affordable Connectivity Program providers and consumers to improper and abusive enrollment practices that are part of some providers’ online enrollment processes.

The Peace Corps Office of Inspector General reviewed the system of quality control for the NCUA OIG in effect for the year ending September 30, 2021. A system of quality control encompasses the NCUA OIG's organizational structure, the policies adopted and procedures established to provide it with a reasonable assurance of conforming in all material respects with Government Auditing Standards and applicable legal and regulatory requirements. The elements of quality control are described in Government Auditing Standards. The Peace Corps OIG opined that the system of quality control for the NCUA OIG in effect for the year ending September 30, 2021, has been suitably designed and complied with to provide NCUA OIG with reasonable assurance of performing and reporting in conformity with applicable professional standards and applicable legal and regulatory requirements in all material respects. Audit organizations can receive a rating of pass, pass with deficiencies, or fail. NCUA OIG received an External Peer Review rating of pass.