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Brought to you by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency
Federal Reports
Report Date
Agency Reviewed / Investigated
Report Title
Type
Location
Department of Agriculture
Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) and Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP)
OIG examined the circumstances surrounding the oversight and enforcement of the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR)/Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) food delivery contract.
Note: This report contains sensitive content that is being withheld from public release. Any monetary impact amounts redacted from this report are not reflected in monetary totals.
VBA’s Pension and Fiduciary Service, which administers the death benefits program, assists eligible claimants with burial expenses, plot costs, and transportation costs for a veteran’s remains. To streamline claims processing for death benefits, VBA launched a system called pension automation. This automation system extracts data from claim applications and documents, such as a death certificate, and uses rules to generate decisions and notification letters for claims. Given VBA’s increased reliance on automation, the VA OIG conducted this review to determine whether VBA’s automation system is accurately processing claims for death benefits.
Based on statistical analysis of a sample of 150 claims for veterans’ death benefits completed by automation from January 5, 2023, through March 31, 2024, the OIG estimated that 83 percent of such claims contained an error, of which 2,000 claims (16 percent) resulted in about $1.9 million in underpayments to survivors. Although the automation system correctly processed most burial allowances (90 percent) and plot allowances (95 percent), the OIG team estimated that 9,800 transportation claims (79 percent) were improperly processed during the review period. The most common errors identified by the team were: the automation system prematurely denied transportation claims that should have been transferred to a claims processor to review the transportation benefit; some transportation claims were never reimbursed; and the notification letter did not provide a decision on transportation for some claims. These errors occurred because the automation system did not have rules to ensure the proper processing of transportation benefits and because of a discrepancy in VBA policy. The OIG made and the under secretary for benefits concurred with two recommendations to update VBA policy and ensure automation is consistent with the policy for processing this benefit.
Prior to the launch of the Delivering for America plan, the U.S. Postal Service used Surface Transfer Centers to distribute, consolidate, dispatch, and transfer all mail classes within the surface network. They also served as a concentration point for consolidating mail from under-utilized surface trips. In September 2024, the Postal Service transitioned to the use of RTHs. RTHs are intended to decrease the number of mail separations and fill containers quickly during processing to expedite getting mail onto trucks and out for delivery to customers.
As of March 2025, 18 RTHs were active nationwide. While the Postal Service indicated that work handled at RTHs would be insourced, some RTHs, such as the Denver RTH, continue to be operated by contractors rather than Postal Service employees.