MSHA Needs to Better Manage its Pre-Assessment Conferencing Program

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Date Issued

Monday, September 23, 2019

Submitting OIG

Department of Labor OIG

Other Participating OIGs

Department of Labor OIG

Agencies Reviewed/Investigated

Department of Labor

Report Number

05-19-001-06-001

Report Type

Audit

Agency Wide

Yes

Number of Recommendations

Open Recommendations

This report has 6 open recommendations.

Recommendation Number	Significant Recommendation	Recommended Questioned Costs	Recommended Funds for Better Use
2	Yes	$0	$0
We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health provide training to district management on how provide effective oversight over the pre-assessment conference program. The training should focus on reviewing the conference file and the system data for completeness and accuracy. Note: This recommendation applies to issues 1 (conference files) and 3 (system data).
1	Yes	$0	$0
We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health provide training to Conference Litigation Representatives and district management on how to write specific supporting reasons for conference decisions in conference files and violation forms.
4	Yes	$0	$0
We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health develop MSHA Standardized Information System reports showing a summary of conference decisions that Conference Litigation Representatives can use as their monthly report and changes made to violation form attributes through conferencing decisions that MSHA can use to identify high-risk attributes and research the root causes for trends.
7	Yes	$0	$0
We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health provide training on how to populate MSHA’s Standardized Information System from the conference files and the importance of the importance of filling in all data fields. The training should focus on defining the required conferencing fields in MSIS to populate, identifying what documentation in the conference file to use when populating each field, and defining appropriate times to cancel a conference.
8	Yes	$0	$0
We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health update MSHA’s Standardized Information System with two system controls that require users to populate all required fields and prevent personnel from entering dates in the wrong order.
9	Yes	$0	$0
We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health perform periodic reviews of MSHA’s Standardized Information System data to ensure that districts are accurately populating it and marking conferences as completed in a timely manner.