Audit of VA's Compliance With the DATA Act

The OIG contracted with an independent public accounting firm for a performance audit to assess the VA’s compliance with the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). The contractor reported that VA did not fully comply with the DATA Act due to weaknesses in VA’s existing financial management systems and internal controls related to source systems, data management, and data reporting processes. As a result, VA did not submit complete, timely, quality, and accurate financial and award data to USASpending.gov for the second quarter of fiscal year 2017. The contractor recommended that VA continue its system modernization efforts and coordinate with VA’s shared service provider to ensure DATA Act requirements will be met. The contractor made 21 recommendations for improving VA’s compliance with DATA Act.