WASHINGTON, D.C. — USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong told the U.S. House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee recently she and her audit team would be conducting at least four audits of her department’s agencies and programs.

“In fiscal year 2014, the OIG (USDA Office of Inspector General) concluded significant audits and investigations that have helped improve how the department administers its annual budget of $146 billion,” Fong told the subcommittee.

In her Feb. 23 testimony, she said the OIG’s audit and investigative work is designed not only to find instances of fraud, waste and abuse, but to also make recommendations that improve how programs will function in the future. Last year, she said, the OIG obtained potential monetary results totaling more than $700 million.

“We issued 36 audit reports and made 247 recommendations to strengthen USDA programs and operations, which produced about $325.4 million in potential results,” which she noted netted 609 convictions by the OIG, with potential results totaling almost $374.6 million.

Fong told subcommittee members she would have three goals in mind when conducting the audits: safety and security; integrity of benefits; and management improvement initiatives. She said her office produced audit reports with significant findings involving the Risk Management Agency (RMA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA).

“We found that the NRCS’ controls over the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) – the agency’s largest program for FY 2009 through 2011, receiving nearly $3.5 billion in appropriations, cumulatively – need to be strengthened so that the program can effectively assist participants in addressing environmental concerns,” she explained.

While the agency’s allocation method adequately considered environmental concerns at the national level, the state-level allocation processes did not, she added. “We also found that the NRCS did not require follow-up visits to ensure practices were in working order for their intended lifespan, which resulted in several practices not being maintained.

“Without effective monitoring controls to address these deficiencies, these conservation practices may not be resulting in the intended environmental benefits,” she said.

In addition, Fong said the OIG is auditing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, analyzing the error rate to make sure the current 3.2 percent for over- and under-payments is accurate.

Fong told CQ News auditors are also reviewing how the RMA sets insurance rates for some producers. Fong said her office has recommended improvements to the process and will be checking progress.

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), who chairs the subcommittee, asked Fong about a timetable for finishing a review with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the FSA’s $400 million project known as Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems. “The USDA mismanaged this project and the funding for this critical investment,” Aderholt told Fong.

She told Aderholt the audit would probably be available in the next several months. As far as where the USDA fits in “the panoply of federal government agencies with high-risk programs (for fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement),” Fong told Aderholt, “I would say we’re probably in the middle. I don’t think we’re the best by any means, but I don’t believe we are the worst, either.”

Under the OIG’s goal of safety and security, she told the subcommittee the OIG had completed an investigation into a California meat processing plant that was processing diseased cattle for human consumption and avoiding regulatory inspections by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

Fong said the owner instructed the foreman to circumvent inspection procedures for certain cows with “cancer eye,” an illness that results in unsightly tumors on cows’ eyes and eyelids. “The foreman, or another employee at his instruction, placed the heads from apparently healthy cows next to the bodies of cows with cancer eye,” she said.

“As a result of this case, the owner and two employees were charged with numerous criminal acts. They have pled guilty to conspiracy under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and to distribution of adulterated, misbranded and uninspected meat.” The FSIS has since suspended operations at the plant, she added.

Fong said the OIG’s FY2016 budget request for $98.9 million would create a “center of excellence to address overpayments and IT security, which she called the USDA’s most critical problems.” She noted each USDA agency must deliver services under “good and fair and transparent procedures and to make sure that the right people are getting the right funds.”