Federal Reports

This inspection concluded that the FCC has effectively implemented five of the nine privacy requirements in Title 42 U.S.C. § 2000ee-2. Four of the nine requirements had not been effectively implemented for the period covered by our review. The final report includes four findings and offers seven recommendations intended to improve the Commission’s privacy and data protection policies and procedures

To see our report, click on the link below

The audit of AmeriCorps grants awarded to the Puerto Rico Commission for Volunteerism and Community Service (the Commission) and two of its subgrantees found that the Commission and subgrantees did not comply with Federal regulations and AmeriCorps grant terms and conditions resulting in $625,446 in questioned Federal and match costs, and education awards. Specifically, the Commission did not adequately document or appropriately report costs. We also found the Commission insufficiently monitored its subgrantees’ compliance with grant terms and conditions and the Commission’s and a subgrantee’s financial management system did not properly track grant and report expenditures.We made recommendations for the Commission and AmeriCorps that focus on improving the Commission’s and its subgrantees’ administrative and management procedures for monitoring AmeriCorps grants. The Commission concurred with all findings within the report and noted that it had begun implementing corrective actions consistent with the auditor’s recommendations. AmeriCorps acknowledged working with the Commission on its management response and noted it will make its final determination for all findings, recommendations, and questioned costs after receiving the final report and reviewing the auditor’s working papers and the Commission’s corrective action plan.

We found that Indian Affairs was unable to effectively manage deferred maintenance at school facilities funded by the Bureau of Indian Education.

The Inflation Reduction Act authorizes $4 billion in appropriations for the Bureau of Reclamation to mitigate drought in the Reclamation States.

We audited costs claimed by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries under WSFR grants awarded by FWS.

We found the Interagency Working Group on Mining Regulations, Laws, and Permitting did not fully meet IIJA Section 40206 reporting and performance metric requirements. 

The audit of AmeriCorps grants awarded to YouthBuild USA found that AmeriCorps was aware of inconsistencies between Federal Statute and Federal Regulations concerning limitations on Federal share of member living allowance and member support costs beginning in 2009 and neither updated its Federal regulations nor effectively explained the inconsistencies to grantees. In addition, YouthBuild did not comply with Federal or AmeriCorps requirements, resulting in $3,604,355 of questioned Federal and match costs. The audit identified an additional $3,087,791 in funds put to better use. The questioned costs and funds put to better use stem from YouthBuild’s ineffective system of internal controls over timekeeping that failed to provide reasonable assurance that it and its subgrantees are adequately managing AmeriCorps funds. YouthBuild’s weak internal controls allowed a subgrantee to recruit prospective and existing employees as AmeriCorps members and permit them to earn and receive education awards for the same hours worked fulfilling their normal employment duties. In addition, YouthBuild’s timekeeping and member training hours policies significantly deviated from Federal regulations and AmeriCorps’ policy; and YouthBuild did not sufficiently monitor its subgrantees to detect instances of non-compliance with its policies. AmeriCorps agreed to disallow $3,083,528 in questioned costs due to the YouthBuild subgrantee recruiting employees as AmeriCorps members and other instances of subgrantee non-compliance undetected by YouthBuild’s monitoring. However, AmeriCorps did not agree with recommendations to disallow the remaining $520,827 of questioned costs related to noncompliant timekeeping practices and to require YouthBuild to pay $3,087,791 in outstanding education awards. These decisions by AmeriCorps increase the likelihood that grantees will adopt fraudulent timekeeping practices and put a significant amount of AmeriCorps funds at risk.