Reports

The audit will cover the expenditures and obligations of HAVA CARES Act and Election Security grants from date of award through September 30, 2023. The objectives are to determine if USVI 1) used funds for authorized purposes in accordance with requirements; 2) properly accounted for and controlled property purchased with HAVA payments, and 3) used the funds in a manner consistent with the informational plans provided to EAC. We will also confirm that USVI took appropriate corrective actions to address deficiencies noted in OIG's October 2013 audit report.

The audit will cover the expenditures and obligations of HAVA Requirement Payments, Election Security grants, and the CARES Act grants from the date of award through March 31, 2023. The objectives are to determine 1) if the State used funds for authorized purposed in accordance with requirements; 2) properly accounted for and controlled property purchased with HAVA payments; and (3) used the funds in a manner consistent with the informational plans provided to EAC.

The audit will cover the expenditures and obligations of HAVA Requirement Payments, Election Security grants, and the CARES Act grants from the date of award through March 31, 2023. The objectives are to determine 1) if the State used funds for authorized purposed in accordance with requirements; 2) properly accounted for and controlled property purchased with HAVA payments; and (3) used the funds in a manner consistent with the informational plans provided to EAC.

The audit will cover the expenditures and obligations of HAVA Requirement Payments, Election Security grants, and the CARES Act grants from the date of award through March 31, 2023. The objectives are to determine 1) if the State used funds for authorized purposed in accordance with requirements; 2) properly accounted for and controlled property purchased with HAVA payments; and (3) used the funds in a manner consistent with the informational plans provided to EAC.

The audit will cover the expenditures and obligations of HAVA Requirement Payments, Election Security grants, and the CARES Act grants from the date of award through March 31, 2022. The objectives are to determine 1) if the State used funds for authorized purposed in accordance with requirements; 2) properly accounted for and controlled property purchased with HAVA payments; and (3) used the funds in a manner consistent with the informational plans provided to EAC.

Personnel supporting Federal health care programs are a resource critical to the Federal COVID-19 pandemic response efforts. Health care facilities must be prepared for potential personnel shortages and must have plans and processes in place to mitigate these shortages to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics. The PRAC will coordinate a review of four Federal health care programs to determine whether these programs, or the providers they reimburse, experienced shortages in health care personnel during the pandemic, the impact of those health care personnel shortages, and strategies used by the Departments to reduce shortages of health care personnel for future pandemics.

Federal agencies were allocated more than $5 trillion in pandemic response funding to be disbursed to the public and to state and local governments, where a state or local government could have received pandemic response funds from multiple federal programs to improve the overall pandemic response in their communities. Access to information about the total amount of funds received, the purpose of those funds, and the progress made toward achieving the program goals and objectives is not always centralized and can be difficult for the public to track down or may not even be available to the public. The PRAC will conduct impact case studies at 6 different locations and seek to identify the federal pandemic response funds provided to the 6 locations and the purpose of those funds, and to determine if the federal program spending aligned with the intended goals and objectives. The 6 locations identified for this project include: Springfield, Massachusetts; Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Marion County, Georgia; Sheridan County, Nebraska; White Earth Indian Nation, Minnesota; and Jicarilla Apache Nation, New Mexico.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) awarded nearly $2 billion in supplemental grant funding to 1,387 health centers nationwide in fiscal year (FY) 2020 to respond to the COVID-19 public health emergency. The funding was intended to support the health centers' activities related to the detection, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of COVID-19, including maintaining or increasing health center capacity and staffing levels during the pandemic, and expanding COVID-19 testing. The performance period for each of these one-time supplemental grant awards, which HRSA began awarding in March 2020, is 12 months. Health centers were permitted to charge to their awards pre-award costs in order to support expenses related to the COVID-19 public health emergency dating back to January 20, 2020. We will determine whether health centers used their HRSA COVID-19 supplemental grant funding in accordance with Federal requirements and grant terms.

Identifying patients who are at-risk of overdose or abuse is key to addressing this crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this need even more pressing. The National Institutes of Health recently warned that individuals with opioiduse disorder could be particularly hard hit by COVID-19, which is a respiratory virus that attacks the lungs. Respiratory disease is known to increase mortality risks among people taking opioids. This data brief would provide information on opioid utilization among beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Part D in 2020. 

This review is a culmination of the OIG's work on FISMA as well as additional cybersecurity and technology work performed by the OIG throughout the year.  The review this fiscal year includes additional work to address questions raised by members of Congress related to information technology and cybersecurity during the Department of Energy's maximum telework posture.