July 16, 2015

Funds Control Management of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions Recovery Act Projects

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) provided the Department of Energy (Department) $5.1 billion for Defense Environmental Cleanup. These funds afforded the Department's Office of Environmental Management the opportunity to accelerate completion of site cleanup activities and reduce cleanup program life-cycle costs. In January 2013, the Office of Inspector General received an allegation that SRNS had inappropriately used Recovery Act funds.

We substantiated the allegations and found that the Department's Savannah River Operations Office (Operations Office) did not always manage Recovery Act projects performed by SRNS in accordance with funds control requirements.  Specifically, we confirmed that the Department did not follow funds control restrictions when SRNS, in response to incorrect guidance from the Operations Office, reduced documented fee charges for the Transuranic and Solid Waste project and reallocated that amount to the other three projects.  We also confirmed that SRNS, as alleged, charged about $155,000 in questionable costs to Recovery Act projects, including entertainment, promotional items, and commemorative coins.

We made recommendations to address the issues related to funds allocation.

Topic: Management & Administration