Followup Process for External Audits in Federal Student Aid

We concluded that FSA’s external follow-up process was not always effective. We noted that FSA did not close audits timely and did not adequately maintain documentation of audit followup activities. We reported that while FSA had resolved a total of 36 external OIG audit reports between October 1, 2008, and September 30, 2013, only 1 of these audits had been closed. We further noted that as of March 2014, 25 of these 36 audits (69 percent) had been in resolved status for more than 2 years and 9 of the 25 audits (36 percent) had been in resolved status for over 4 years. The total of the monetary recommendations associated with the 36 resolved audits was more than $1.3 billion.