Reports

What We Looked At The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provided the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with $10 billion to help airports deal with the public health emergency caused by Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). FAA awarded $9.1 billion in grants to airports nationwide, using its existing Airport Improvement Program (AIP) to distribute the funds. Our objective for this self-initiated audit was to assess whether FAA’s policies and procedures for awarding and overseeing CARES Act grants are sufficient to protect taxpayer interests. What We Found Leveraging the AIP...

The purpose of this memorandum is to notify stakeholders of the decision to cancel the EAC OIG audit of the administration of HAVA funds by the State of Georgia.

The Office of the Inspector General OIG audited the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) use of remote application and desktop virtualization due to the risk of increased remote users during the COVID-19 pandemic and recent publicized remote access vulnerabilities. We found several areas where TVA was consistent with cybersecurity remote access best practices. However, we identified gaps in TVA’s configuration settings, architectural design, and administrative procedures. We recommend the Vice President and Chief Information and Digital Officer, Technology & Information, review the identified...

What We Looked At The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 set up appropriations to support executive agency operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has received nearly $70 billion in CARES Act and other COVID-19 relief appropriations. FTA uses several financial management systems to approve, process, and disperse this funding for the transit industry’s COVID-19 response and recovery. Given the size of this investment, we initiated this audit. Our audit objective was to assess the effectiveness of FTA’s financial...

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act designated $10 billion to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to support continuing operations at U.S. airports following the sharp decline in passenger traffic and other airport business due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. By the end of fiscal year 2020, FAA had obligated approximately $9.4 billion in formula grants to airports for such purposes as capital expenditures, operating expenses (including payroll and utilities), and debt payments. We are initiating this audit because the act also provided $5 million to OIG for conducting oversight of DOT projects and activities supported by CARES Act funds. Our objective is to assess whether FAA’s policies and procedures for awarding and overseeing CARES Act grants are sufficient to protect taxpayer interests.

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) began taking steps to keep employees and their families’ safe, while also ensuring the agency could fulfill its mission of service. Due to the ongoing pandemic and its impact on TVA’s workforce related to mandatory telework and staffing, we initiated an evaluation to assess TVA’s response to COVID-19. The objective of our evaluation was to assess TVA’s response to COVID-19. Our scope included actions taken by TVA related to staffing, employee safety...

The Federal Transit Administration has received billions in funding appropriated by the CARES Act to provide grants for transit infrastructure to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the pandemic. FTA uses several financial management systems to approve, monitor, and distribute CARES Act funds. In recent months, the number of attacks on Federal Government information systems has increased through a variety of techniques, including social engineering and spear phishing. These attacks can threaten the operations of FTA's financial management information systems by affecting system and...