Agency Oversight

  • The organization says a series of whistleblowers and investigative reports show a "pattern of bureaucratic incompetence and failed leadership" among VA senior leaders. This is the first time in more than 30 years the American Legion has called for the removal of a public official.

    May 05, 2014
  • Corruption and instability in Afghanistan threaten to derail billions of dollars of U.S. aid. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko recounts the problems in a new report to Congress. His team investigated $31 billion worth of programs and projects during the first three months of this year. Sopko told Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp some of the mistakes discovered through the report.

    April 30, 2014
  • The former acting Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security, Charles Edwards, is now on administrative leave, following the release of a Senate subcommittee report indicating Edwards "jeopardized the independence" of the IG office. Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, talks to In Depth with Francis Rose about who's watching the watchers.

    April 29, 2014
  • In a report issued Thursday, the Senate Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight, says Edwards altered or delayed reports to accommodate senior DHS officials, sought outside legal advice in violation of the laws governing agency IGs and failed to recuse himself form some audits despite concerns over conflicts of interest involving his wife, who was also employed by the agency.

    April 24, 2014
  • Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Tom Sharpe tried to balance the need for management oversight with contracting officer autonomy. But some in industry worry that the new memo does nothing more than add more paperwork to a broken process.

    April 23, 2014
  • In a recent audit made public Tuesday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reported that between Oct. 1, 2010 and Dec. 31 2012, more than 2,800 employees disciplined within the past year for misconduct collected a total of $2.8 million in monetary awards. That included more than $1 million in cash awards for 1,100 IRS employees who had failed to pay federal taxes.

    April 22, 2014
  • Despite publicity and crackdowns, credit card abuse continues in federal agencies. Sometimes it's shocking, sometimes amusing, sometimes creepy ... as in dead men charging, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says.

    April 17, 2014
  • Forty-one agencies don't have designated inspectors general of their own, according to Senate Financial and Contracting Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). She's sponsoring a bill that focuses on these small agencies that don't have the budget or resources for their own IG. Beryl Davis, director of financial management and assurance issues at the Government Accountability Office, testified recently before the subcommittee. She tells

    April 14, 2014
  • Changes come in the wake of a NASA-commissioned report on the issue of foreign nationals' access to sensitive information. The study, which has not been released to the public, found the agency had failed to establish a central management structure for those workers' access to data and didn't impose consequences when its policies were violated.

    April 14, 2014
  • Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) told a panel of agency IGs that she's currently drafting legislation that would pool together resources and establish an IG office specifically for the dozens of small agencies that fall outside the scope of the 1978 IG Act.

    April 10, 2014
  • A customer service representative at the IRS who repeatedly greeted taxpayers calling a help-line with a chant urging President Barack Obama's re-election in 2012 could now be facing significant disciplinary action, according to the Office of Special Counsel. It's one of three cases of improper political activity at the agency recently uncovered by OSC. Meanwhile, three career officials at Customs and Border Protection are under fire by OSC for allegedly manipulating the hiring process to install job candidates favored by political leadership into career appointments.

    April 09, 2014
  • Stan Krejci of the SK Group discusses whether your company needs a board of advisers, and if so, how you should assemble one. April 7, 2014

    April 07, 2014
  • Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the oversight committee, and John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the Government Operations subcommittee, want OMB to provide data to the committee on excess federal properties valued at $50 million or more. The committee has been seeking this information for more than two years, "yet these requests have consistently gone unfulfilled," Issa and Mica wrote in a March 24 letter to OMB Director Sylvia Burwell.

    March 25, 2014
  • The strange case of Lois Lerner - a federal official pleading the fifth - and the IRS.

    March 20, 2014