The Investigative Journal’s weekly roundup of consequential public records, audits, and government datasets made newly available in the past week. Each entry links back to primary source material so readers can examine the underlying documents themselves.
The week of April 13, 2026 produced a dense slate of oversight documents, from federal audits of artificial-intelligence procurement to a North Carolina statewide single audit flagging $342,093 in questioned federal costs and fresh Census Bureau datasets on state and local government payrolls. Records made public over the past seven days touch on federal property disposal, offshore tax enforcement, child-care subsidy fraud in Washington state, and municipal governance lapses documented by the New York State Comptroller. Several findings warrant deeper follow-up by accountability journalists, and this roundup identifies them explicitly at the close.
Federal Audits and GAO Reports
GAO: Federal Agencies Not Systematically Capturing AI Acquisition Lessons
The Government Accountability Office released an audit in April 2026 concluding that federal agencies have not been “systematically collecting lessons learned from AI acquisitions,” according to the report’s findings. Auditors examined 44 artificial-intelligence contracts and agreements awarded between September 2018 and February 2025 and identified recurring procurement challenges, including access to subject-matter experts, protections for government data and intellectual property, pricing transparency, and traditional acquisition timeframes that can lag the pace of commercial AI development.
The significance: federal AI spending has grown rapidly, and records indicate agencies are repeating avoidable mistakes because no central repository captures what has and has not worked. GAO’s recommendation framework suggests that without a shared learning mechanism, the government risks paying a premium for immature tools while forfeiting leverage on licensing and IP terms. The full audit is available through the GAO’s Reports & Testimonies portal.
GAO-26-107760: $1.4 Billion in Federal Property Sales Since 2013
In a report published April 9, 2026, GAO documented that the General Services Administration has sold more than 900 unneeded federal properties since 2013, generating approximately $1.4 billion in revenue. GSA launched a new accelerated disposal approach in 2025 that the agency credits with reducing operations and maintenance costs on its real-estate footprint.
Records suggest the federal real-property portfolio remains one of the least-examined sources of taxpayer savings, with the Federal Real Property Profile tracking tens of thousands of buildings in varying states of utilization. The GAO report provides a fresh baseline for tracking disposals against the accelerated targets GSA announced last year. Readers can access the report file directly at gao.gov.
GAO-26-107757: Graduate Researcher Pay Lags Peers
A GAO report published April 8, 2026 examined federal spending on science-and-technology research training and found that graduate students funded through federal programs were paid roughly $36,000 per year and postdoctoral researchers about $60,000 — below comparable private-sector and non-research wages for workers with the same educational attainment. Auditors noted that centralized data on graduate researcher compensation does not currently exist across agencies, complicating workforce-retention analysis.
The finding matters for federal science policy because pipeline attrition — graduate students leaving federally funded research for higher-paying industry roles — affects long-run returns on research and development appropriations. The report is searchable through the GAO library.
Inspector General Findings
TIGTA: IRS Enforcement of FATCA Offshore Rules Remains Minimal
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) released a report on April 8, 2026 documenting that the Internal Revenue Service performed a strikingly low number of examinations, and applied even fewer penalties, related to foreign financial assets held in offshore accounts by U.S. citizens under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Filings indicate the compliance gap has persisted across multiple filing seasons despite congressional attention and prior TIGTA recommendations.
FATCA was enacted in 2010 to curb offshore tax evasion; the TIGTA findings suggest that enforcement infrastructure has not kept pace with the reporting framework. According to the report, the IRS has not meaningfully closed the examination-rate gap that previous audits flagged. The TIGTA report library is accessible through the Treasury OIG.
DOJ OIG: Nebraska Grant Subrecipient Risk Assessment
On April 15, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General released a risk assessment of the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice’s subrecipient-monitoring activities for Office of Justice Programs Victim Assistance Grants. While risk assessments are narrower in scope than full audits, they often presage more extensive reviews. The document is available through the DOJ OIG reports page.
State Department OIG: Foreign Affairs Training Center Emergency Preparedness
The State Department OIG issued a Management Assistance Report (AUD-SIP-26-09) on emergency-preparedness areas for improvement at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center. Management assistance reports are advisory but frequently identify operational gaps that have not yet risen to the level of a formal finding. The report library is maintained at stateoig.gov.
State Audits
North Carolina Statewide Single Audit: $342,093 in Questioned Costs
The North Carolina Office of the State Auditor released its 2025 Statewide Single Audit on April 6, 2026, covering $28 billion in federal grants spent by North Carolina entities in fiscal year 2025. Auditors documented 19 findings and questioned costs totaling $342,093. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services received eight federal findings, including instances where DHHS subawards to counties totaling $138.8 million were not reported as required. An improper payment of $113,115 made by DHHS has since been recouped by the agency, according to the report.
A separate financial-statement finding targeted the North Carolina Department of Commerce, which auditors concluded lacked adequate internal controls and review procedures, resulting in misstatements including $873 million in overstatements and more than $260 million in understatements. The full report and press release are posted at the North Carolina Auditor’s website.
Washington State: $37 Million in “Questionable” Child-Care Subsidy Payments
A Washington statewide audit covering nearly $24 billion in federal funding spent in fiscal year 2025 estimated that the state made approximately $37 million in “questionable payments” for child-care subsidies. The finding raises questions about eligibility verification and post-payment recovery procedures in one of the state’s largest federally funded assistance programs. Records suggest Washington has faced recurring single-audit findings on child-care subsidy administration over multiple years.
Municipal Audits
New York State Comptroller: Local Government and School Audits (April 14, 2026)
The Office of the New York State Comptroller released a batch of local government and school-district audits on April 14, 2026. Findings across the batch include: employee-separation payments that auditors found were miscalculated or unsupported, producing three questionable vacation payouts totaling $15,766 and an ineligible retirement-incentive payment; procurement lapses in which, of 35 sampled purchases totaling $2.26 million, auditors identified 24 purchases totaling roughly $760,000 that did not comply with procurement policy or statutory requirements; and financial-oversight failures in which the mayor and city officials did not provide the oversight necessary for council members to fully assess municipal financial condition.
The full batch is posted at the New York State Comptroller’s press office.
Colorado Springs: Audit Committee Flags Use of City Resources
The Colorado Springs city Audit Committee in early April 2026 recommended the city establish an enforceable policy governing elected officials’ use of municipal resources, specifically citing police detail and city vehicles. The committee’s recommendation indicates concerns that existing standards are either ambiguous or inconsistently applied.
Government Data Releases
Census Bureau: 2025 Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll
On April 16, 2026, the U.S. Census Bureau released the 2025 Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll (ASPEP), a comprehensive dataset on state and local government workforce composition, full-time-equivalent employment, and gross monthly payroll statistics by governmental function for March 2025. The ASPEP release is among the most detailed public-sector workforce datasets available and is heavily used by researchers and municipal-finance analysts. The release and accompanying tables are posted by the Census Bureau.
Census Bureau: 2025 State Government Tax Collections
The Census Bureau also released the 2025 State Government Tax Collections data on April 15, 2026. The dataset is used by analysts to examine tax policy, GDP estimates, and national income and product accounts. Combined with the ASPEP release, state-level fiscal analysts now have a substantially updated picture of workforce and revenue composition heading into the next budget cycle.
Department of Labor: Weekly Unemployment Insurance Claims
The Department of Labor released Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims data on April 16, 2026 showing that in the week ending April 11 the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 207,000. UI weekly claims remain one of the highest-frequency labor-market indicators and are closely watched by markets and policymakers.
Records Warranting Deeper TIJ Investigation
Three items from this week’s records slate warrant deeper accountability reporting in the near term.
First, the TIGTA finding on FATCA under-enforcement is a multi-year pattern. The question is not whether IRS examinations are low — the data shows they are — but whether under-enforcement is a function of staffing, technology, policy, or some combination. Records requests to the IRS Office of Appeals and to TIGTA’s working papers could clarify the mechanism.
Second, the North Carolina Department of Commerce financial-statement error exceeding $1 billion in combined overstatements and understatements is not a rounding issue. It suggests a controls failure at scale. Follow-up reporting should examine whether the controls weakness predates the current audit cycle and what federal programs are potentially affected.
Third, Washington’s $37 million child-care subsidy finding follows a pattern of single-audit findings in state-administered federal programs, and the recovery mechanism deserves scrutiny. Records filings indicate Washington has faced similar flagging before; the question is whether the state has a written corrective action plan and what recovery it has actually achieved to date.
TIJ will continue publishing weekly public records roundups every Monday. Tips, document leads, and correction requests can be directed to the editorial desk.