Open Recommendations

OIG recommends that the Bureau of Administration, Office of the Procurement Executive amend the Foreign Affairs Handbook to include a subsection in 14 FAH-2 H-320, Acquisition Planning, providing direct guidance on sole source noncompetitive contracts or contract extensions with an existing contractor to bridge the time between the original end of that contractor’s contract and the competitive award of a follow-on contract, including providing definitions to the terms: “bridge contract” or “bridge actions,” the parameters under which these sole source noncompetitive contracts and extensions can be used, and a requirement to provide additional information necessary to justify consecutive uses of…

OIG recommends that the Bureau of Administration, Office of the Procurement Executive, develop and implement a process to identify and elevate to the Assistant Secretary of Administration, who serves as the appointed agency Chief Acquisition Officer, instances when the acquisition planning process is adversely impacted due to insufficient program office participation so the Chief Acquisition Officer can engage with the impacted program office bureau’s assistant secretary to resolve delays in pursuing full and open competition for contracts in overseas contingency environments.

OIG recommends that the Bureau of Administration, Office of the Procurement Executive, revise its Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC) Guide to require that written justification for using less than full and open competition for awarding bridge contracts include information on why and how the delay occurred, what measures have or will be undertaken to resolve the delay, and the milestones to achieving full and open competition.

(U) Rec. A.1.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment revise DoD Instruction 4715.18 to include requirements for Emerging Chemical Program officials to develop risk management options and initiate proactive risk management actions which may be warranted to identify and mitigate the contaminant effects of emerging chemicals as early as possible in the Emerging Chemical Process, regardless of whether an emerging chemical is on the Emerging Chemical Watch List or the Emerging Chemical Action List.

(U) Rec. A.2: The DoD OIG recommended that the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Environment and Energy Resilience) complete the Emerging Chemical Process for potential perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances exposure caused by DoD activities from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substance-containing materials other than Aqueous Film Forming Foam by developing and presenting validated risk management options for the perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances on the Emerging Chemical Action List to the Emerging Chemicals of Concern Governance Council, as required by DoD Instruction 4715.18.

(U) Rec. B: The DoD OIG recommended that the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Readiness) develop a plan to track, trend, and analyze DoD firefighter perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances blood test results at a DoD-wide level, in accordance with DoD Instruction 6055.05.

We recommend that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission refund $856,456 to the Federal Government.

We recommend that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission identify and recover additional unallowable CHIP payments made before and after our audit period for the 572 beneficiary-matches and repay the Federal share.

We recommend that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission identify any other beneficiaries who are assigned more than one identification number and refund any unallowable CHIP payments associated with those beneficiaries.

We recommend that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission strengthen its procedures for determining whether applicants are already enrolled in any medical or public assistance benefits throughout the State and ensure that no beneficiary is assigned more than one identification number.

Direct TSU to strengthen the administrative and management controls and processes over obtaining and maintaining sufficient supporting documentation.

Direct TSU to strengthen its administrative and management controls and processes over the proper allocation of costs.

Direct TSU to update its administrative and management processes and internal control procedures related to assigning participant support costs within its accounting system.

Direct TSU to update its administrative and management processes and internal control procedures surrounding the Award Cash Management $ervice system.

Direct TSU to strengthen the administrative and management procedures over certifying time and effort reports in a timely manner.

Direct TSU to strengthen the administrative and management procedures to require the inclusion of pertinent information on time and effort reports such as fund codes, award numbers, and work descriptions.

We recommend that the New York State Department of Health refund to the Federal Government or provide documentation of such refund, totaling $97,998,292. Specifically refund to the Federal Government $77,152,491 related to random moments that could not be supported as Medicaid-eligible health services; refund to the Federal Government $1,238,102 for intergovernmental agreement payments that the State agency did not support that it did not double-claim; and refund to the Federal Government or provide documentation of the refund to CMS of $19,607,699 for excess costs claimed on the Form CMS-64 for 1 year.

We recommend that the New York State Department of Health refund $32,267,478 to the Federal Government or provide documentation to CMS to establish that it met an exception to use SY 2013 RMTSs to allocate costs for SY 2012.

We recommend that the New York State Department of Health refund $308,972,87027 to the Federal Government or provide documentation that it can reasonably support, under the circumstances, its allocation of health services costs to Medicaid without using unverifiable IEP ratios.

We recommend that the New York State Department of Health ensure that its contractor (1) collects sufficient information so the State agency can validate the contractor's coding of sampled moments and (2) correctly offsets and supports intergovernmental agreement transactions.

We recommend that the New York State Department of Health revise its certified public expenditures SSHSP to (1) include September days worked in its random moment time study and (2) develop an accurate, supportable method to identify Medicaid costs instead of unverifiable IEP ratios.

We recommend that Palmetto GBA, LLC, discontinue using its internal policies of waiving certain overpayment collections related to lookback years and start collecting all hospice cap overpayments and paying refunds in accordance with CMS requirements.

We recommend that Palmetto GBA, LLC develop processes for communication between the departments directly and indirectly involved in hospice cap oversight.

Develop a policy describing the circumstances, if any, under which telephonic interviews of alleged child abuse victims, including adults who had allegedly been victims of abuse as children, are appropriate.

Train FBI employees on the policies discussed in the first three recommendations and any changes made to them.