All Reports

Our review covered the external contractual services' conducted by RM. Our objectives were to determine if (1) work was performed in accordance with applicable policies and procedures and (2) costs associated with TVA employees working for outside entities/agencies were adequately recovered. In summary, we found:The majority of fiscal year (FY) 2006 RM External Contractual Services' revenue was generated from work for other federal agencies, and the projects we selected for review appeared to be in compliance with the Economy Act of 1932, as amended (31 USC 1535).

We identified issues related to (1) noncompliance with reporting requirements; (2) different interpretations on how some environmental occurrences should be classified; (3) environmental issues that were not documented and managed through TVA's corrective action program; (4) lack of a corporate reportable environmental events (REE) procedure; (5) inaccurate environmental data in the Electronic Corrective Action Program (eCAP), Environmental Event Reporting (EER) system, and REE registry; and (6) two instances where TVA did not externally report events because they did not feel it was r

TVA contracted with the independent certified public accounting firm of Pricewaterhouse-Coopers LLP (PricewaterhouseCoopers) to audit the balance sheets as of September 30, 2007, and 2006 and the related statements of income, changes in proprietary capital, and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended September 30, 2007. The contract required the audit be done in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

We conducted three reviews to determine whether the coal supplier was in compliance with weighing, sampling, and shipping provisions of the respective contract. We performed tests to verify that shipment weight and coal test results documentation maintained at each mine supported the amounts used to (1) invoice TVA for tonnage shipped and (2) calculate coal-quality adjustments. In summary, our reviews found documentation maintained at the respective mine for ten randomly selected shipments agreed with the information provided to TVA regarding tons shipped and coal-quality test results.

In a prior audit, 2007-10997, Review of Temporary Shares for Sensitive Information, the OIG identified numerous incidents of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and TVA sensitive information on temporary shares available to anyone with a TVA network ID. TVA's Information Services (IS) organization subsequently reviewed other temporary shares and identified additional instances of PII available on the shares.

We investigated the amount of coal being left in barges after they were unloaded at the Cumberland Fossil Plant. Information provided by the barge company showed that from August 1, 2006 through July 31, 2007, TVA abandoned roughly 14,000 tons of coal per month. Based on the average cost per ton, including transportation costs, we estimated TVA lost over $6 million annually.

We reviewed hospitality expenses incurred by TVA October 1, 2005, through June 30, 2007, to (1) determine the type and level of expenditures; (2) assess compliance with policies and procedures; and (3) identify changes in hospitality policies since our last hospitality audit. We found total hospitality expenditures, including employee recognition expenses, averaged about $2.3 million per year during the period, representing a 64 percent reduction from fiscal year 2003 spending.

We performed agreed-upon procedures, requested solely to assist management in determining the validity of the Winning Performance payout awards for fiscal year (FY) ending September 30, 2007. In summary, we found:The FY 2007 Winning Performance goals were properly approved. Actual year-to-date inputs for the sampled metrics agreed with the respective basis worksheet.

We audited $324,000 of costs billed to TVA by a contractor for providing volunteer services using TVA retirees to determine if the contractor had billed TVA in accordance with the contract terms and conditions. In summary, we found the contractor had overbilled TVA $63,755 including (1) $44,855 of unsupported costs and (2) an estimated $18,900 of ineligible travel expenses.

This reporting period was marked by TVA leading the nation in the resurgence of nuclear power.