Reports

Department of Veterans Affairs OIG

VHA Can Improve Controls Over Its Use of Supplemental Funds

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act appropriated about $17.2 billion in supplemental funds to the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to support VA’s efforts to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The OIG conducted this audit to assess the effectiveness of VA’s controls over VHA’s use of these funds. Because VA’s financial management system does not support the direct obligation of supplemental funds for all expenses, staff used expenditure transfers to shift funds between appropriation accounts. Expenditure transfers are documented using...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Audit | 5/09/2023

01 - Closed

VA’s assistant secretary for management and chief financial officer assess the iFAMS configuration to determine whether integration with the payroll subsystems can be accomplished to resolve some of the payroll-related issues that require the need for expenditure transfers.

01 - Closed

Assess the iFAMS configuration to determine whether integration with the payroll subsystems can be accomplished to resolve some of the payroll-related issues that require the need for expenditure transfers.

02 - Closed

Establish guidance that outlines the type of documentation required to support the amounts identified in the manual journal vouchers when processing expenditure transfers.

03 - Open

VA’s under secretary for health require medical facility staff have documented authority, through proper delegation, to make purchases.

04 - Open

VA’s under secretary for health verify that medical facility staff segregate duties so that the same person is not both authorizing and receiving goods and services.

05 - Open

VA’s under secretary for health make certain the purchase card holder is not the requestor or approver for the purchase.

06 - Open

VA’s under secretary for health ensure contracting officer’s representatives know and understand their duties and responsibilities for the certification and payment of invoices.

07 - Open

VA’s under secretary for health check vendors’ compliance with contract terms to include the comparison of invoiced amounts with the contract line-item unit costs.

08 - Open

VA’s under secretary for health ensure that medical facility staff track the receipt of goods to make certain they are the correct quantity.

09 - Closed

Conduct an assessment of lessons learned from the emergency response to the pandemic and develop appropriate action plans to integrate oversight roles, responsibilities, and clear guidance into the use of supplemental funds.

Department of Veterans Affairs OIG

Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans’ Hospital Missed Opportunities to Distribute Excess Ventilators during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a surge in demand for ventilators and provoked concerns about potential supply shortages across VA medical facilities. During the course of a previous broader review, the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) uncovered a potential issue with the number of ventilators procured and stored at the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans’ Hospital in San Antonio, Texas, and sought to determine whether they had been properly requested, acquired, received, and accounted for. The OIG found the facility acquired more ventilators from March 1, 2020, through November 30, 2021, than...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Review | 4/11/2023

Department of Education OIG

University of Cincinnati’s Use of Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund Student Aid and Institutional Grants

Our objective was to determine whether the University of Cincinnati (University) used the Student Aid (Assistance Listing Number (ALN) 84.425E) and Institutional (ALN 84.425F) portions of its Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) funds for allowable and intended purposes. The University spent $109.9 million (83 percent) of its total HEERF allocation of $132.8 million as of September 30, 2021. The University generally used the Student Aid ($42.1 million) and Institutional ($67.8 million) portions of its HEERF grant funds for allowable and intended purposes but needs to strengthen its...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Audit | 1/17/2023

1.1 - Closed

Require the University of Cincinnati to develop and implement a review process to prevent or detect payment errors when awarding emergency financial aid grants to students, including written policies and procedures detailing how the reviews shall be conducted and the results documented, in accordance with 2 C.F.R. section 200.303.

1.2 - Open

Require the University of Cincinnati to develop and implement written policies, procedures, and management review to ensure that its award determinations, eligibility criteria, and management decisions related to eligibility for its emergency financial aid grants to students are adequately documented and supported at the time award decisions are made, in accordance with 2 C.F.R. section 200.302(b)(3).

1.3 - Open

Require the University of Cincinnati to carefully document how its student aid eligibility criteria prioritized and continues to prioritize students with exceptional need throughout the HEERF grant performance period.

2.1 - Open

Require the University of Cincinnati to develop and implement written policies and procedures, including procedures that would identify and prevent improper revenue recognition and duplicate charges, to ensure that future calculations for charging lost revenue to its HEERF Institutional grant are reviewed for accuracy and consistency with its financial reporting policies and procedures.

2.2 - Open

Determine whether the University of Cincinnati implemented appropriate corrective actions to resolve the $797,965 in unsupported lost revenue costs it charged to its HEERF Institutional grant; and, if the corrective actions are inappropriate, require the University to either return the funds to the Department or reallocate the funds for allowable expenditures.

2.3 - Open

Determine whether the $1,916,041 that the University of Cincinnati charged to its HEERF Institutional grant for noncompetitive procurements was reasonable when compared to the costs of suitable alternatives; and, if the charges were inappropriate, require the University to either return the funds to the Department or reallocate the funds for allowable expenditures.

2.4 - Open

Require the University of Cincinnati to develop and implement written policies and procedures to ensure that procurements charged to its HEERF Institutional grant are in accordance with applicable Federal requirements; and it consistently follows its procurement policies and procedures, including maintaining sufficient documentation to support its rationale for noncompetitive procurements and the basis for and reasonableness of the contract price.

3.1 - Open

Require the University of Cincinnati to incorporate in its policies and procedures and implement the cash management requirements for minimizing the time between drawing down and disbursing Federal grant funds, and remitting interest earned in excess of $500 in accordance with 2 C.F.R. section 200.305(b).

3.2 - Open

Require the University of Cincinnati to remit $35,439 based on the TIP’s average rate of return, less no more than $320 ($500 minus the $180 already retained) for administrative expenses if applicable; and remit the actual amount of earned interest on any future advances of Federal funds, in accordance with 2 C.F.R. section 200.305(b)(9).

4.1 - Open

Require the University of Cincinnati to develop and implement written policies and procedures that incorporate the HEERF program’s reporting requirements and ensure that the expenditures in its quarterly HEERF Institutional expenditure reports are accurate and reported in the appropriate expenditure category.

Department of Veterans Affairs OIG

VHA Progressed in the Follow-Up of Canceled Appointments during the Pandemic but Could Use Additional Oversight Metrics

The OIG reviewed the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) progress in monitoring their follow-up of canceled appointments during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the OIG reported that VHA had not followed up on about 32 percent of canceled appointments. VHA then implemented the Cancelled Appointments and Consult Management Initiative and created a cancellation report to track follow-up conducted for appointments originally scheduled to occur after July 21, 2020. The report allowed tracking by types of care, by month, and cumulatively, but VHA did not use all the reporting features. VHA...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

U.S. Postal Service OIG

COVID-19 Test Kit Distribution

The Biden administration purchased rapid COVID-19 test kits to give to Americans free of charge for home use and partnered with the U.S. Postal Service to package and deliver the kits. Within a short period, the Postal Service established a test kit program, which facilitated ordering, fulfillment, and delivery of kits to 125 million residential addresses. The Postal Service designed and developed a website for customers to order test kits for delivery to their homes. Our objective was to assess the accounting treatment and selected technology support associated with the distribution of the...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Audit | 9/28/2022

Department of Education OIG

Michigan’s Administration of the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund

The objectives of the audit were to determine whether the State of Michigan (Michigan) designed and implemented awarding processes that ensured that the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER grant) was used to support local educational agencies (LEAs) and institutions of higher education (IHEs) that were most significantly impacted by the coronavirus or LEAs, IHEs, or other education-related entities within the State that were deemed essential for carrying out emergency educational services; and monitoring processes to ensure that subgrantees used GEER grant funds in accordance with...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Audit | 9/14/2022

Department of Veterans Affairs OIG

Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Summary Report: Evaluation of Medication Management in Veterans Health Administration Facilities, Fiscal Year 2021

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Program (CHIP) report highlights the results of a focused evaluation of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities’ medication management related to remdesivir use. The report describes medication management-related findings from healthcare inspections performed at 34 VHA medical facilities during fiscal year 2021. Each inspection involved interviews with key staff and reviews of clinical and administrative processes. The OIG found that VHA met many elements of expected performance, including the availability of...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Department of Education OIG

Oklahoma’s Administration of the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund Grant

The objectives of the audit were to determine whether the State of Oklahoma (Oklahoma) designed and implemented awarding processes that ensured that the Governor's Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER grant) was used to support local educational agencies (LEA) and institutions of higher education (IHE) that were most significantly impacted by the coronavirus or LEAs, IHEs, or other education-related entities within the State that were deemed essential for carrying out emergency educational services; and monitoring processes to ensure that subgrantees used GEER grant funds in accordance with...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Audit | 7/18/2022

1.1 - Open

Provide documentation, or a full and detailed written explanation, of the process Oklahoma used to determine the initiatives it supported with GEER grant funds and the entities it selected to administer the initiatives.

1.2 - Open

Develop and implement a process to ensure that it documents the criteria and decisions made for awarding future GEER grant funds in accordance with applicable requirements.

1.3 - Open

Develop and implement internal controls to ensure that it administers current and future GEER grants in accordance with applicable Federal laws and grant requirements, including ensuring that grant subrecipients are provided the proper award documentation; and that any entity that is awarded Federal funds retains records relating to those awards in accordance with Federal requirements.

1.4 - Open

Perform a 100 percent review, or review a statistical sample, of the Stay in School Fund microgrant recipients to confirm that all students were eligible to receive GEER grant funds.

1.5 - Open

Develop and implement written policies and procedures to describe the specific circumstances under which deviations from procurement rules are warranted, including procedures about required documentation of such decisions for procurements that do not use competitive bidding but use Federal education funds.

1.6 - Open

Take appropriate action if the documentation and other information provided by Oklahoma in response to the above recommendations does not support that the State followed applicable requirements.

2.1 - Open

Return $652,720 to the Department for the unallowable Bridge the Gap expenditures we identified or provide documentation to support that the expenditures were allowable or the items were purchased with personal funds.

2.2 - Open

Perform a 100-percent review, or review a statistical sample, of the $5,473,894 in Bridge the Gap expenditures that we did not review to determine whether the expenditures were allowable, and if applicable, return the funds for any unallowable expenditures to the Department.

2.3 - Open

Develop and implement additional internal controls for the Skills to Rebuild, Learn Anywhere Oklahoma, Bridge the Gap, and Stay in School Fund initiatives that include written monitoring procedures for those processes that are already in place, and for additional procedures that include a review of expenditures and supporting documentation, and a review of documentation that supports the information in initiatives’ weekly status reports.

2.4 - Open

Develop and implement internal controls to ensure that fiscal agents for Federal grant programs obtain an understanding of the rules and regulations surrounding the grant programs they are tasked with overseeing.

3.1 - Open

Develop and implement controls to ensure that Oklahoma’s State agencies that receive Federal funds have written cash management policies and procedures, including policies for the draw down and disbursement of grant funds in accordance with Federal requirements.

3.2 - Open

Return to the Department any unexpended GEER grant funds applicable to our audit scope that are being held by GEER grant subrecipients.

3.3 - Open

3.4 - Open

Require its fiscal agent or State program representative to work closely with the Department to ensure that other GEER grants are administered in compliance with cash management rules and with any actions the Department determines are needed, if warranted.

Railroad Retirement Board OIG

The RRB Did Not Have Detailed Project Plans to Expend Information Technology Modernization Funds

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Audit | 6/29/2022

Department of Education OIG

Duplicate Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund Grant Awards

This flash report presents our finding concerning duplicate Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) grant awards to institutions of higher education.1 This report includes a recommendation to enhance the U.S. Department of Education’s (Department) ability to prevent, identify, and correct duplicate HEERF grant awards. We identified 25 duplicate HEERF grant awards that OPE made to 24 schools, totaling about $73 million, which had not been corrected and documented in G5 as of August 2021. OPE officials stated that their processes for reviewing and approving HEERF applications and awards...

Full Details: Oversight.gov Report Page

Other | 6/09/2022

Date Range

Report Type

Report Category

Submitting Agency

State/Local Agency

State (State and Local Reports)

Fraud Type

Agency Reviewed

Related Organizations

Management Challenges

Any Recommendations

Any Open Recommendations

Reports

VHA Can Improve Controls Over Its Use of Supplemental Funds

Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans’ Hospital Missed Opportunities to Distribute Excess Ventilators during the COVID-19 Pandemic

University of Cincinnati’s Use of Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund Student Aid and Institutional Grants

VHA Progressed in the Follow-Up of Canceled Appointments during the Pandemic but Could Use Additional Oversight Metrics

COVID-19 Test Kit Distribution

Michigan’s Administration of the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund

Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Summary Report: Evaluation of Medication Management in Veterans Health Administration Facilities, Fiscal Year 2021

Oklahoma’s Administration of the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund Grant

The RRB Did Not Have Detailed Project Plans to Expend Information Technology Modernization Funds

Duplicate Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund Grant Awards

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