Federal Reports

At the end of a contract life cycle, Supply Management is required to close out the contract by concluding or resolving all contractual requirements. Contracting officers (CO) are responsible for ensuring that all contract closeout activities are performed. Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of Supply Management’s controls over the contract closeout process. Our fieldwork was completed before the President of the United States issued the national emergency declaration concerning the novel coronavirus disease outbreak (COVID-19) on March 13, 2020. The results of this audit do not reflect any process changes that may have occurred as a result of the pandemic.

We conducted a limited scope audit of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (NJSCA) for the period of June 1, 2016 to May 31, 2019. Limited scope audits involve a limited review of financial and non-financial information of the National Endowment for the Arts (Arts Endowment) award recipients to ensure validity and accuracy of reported information, and compliance with Federal requirements. Based on our limited scope audit, we concluded that NJSCA did not fully comply with financial management system and recordkeeping requirements established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and the Arts Endowment. We identified the following areas requiring improvement. NJSCA: did not report actual costs on its Federal Financial Reports (FFRs); reported unallowable subawards and alcohol costs on its FFRs; reported costs outside of the award period on its FFRs; did not submit its revised FFR on time; did not have debarment and suspension policies and procedures; and did not have policies and procedures for the management of Federal awards.

See link below for the full report, report summary, multimedia or any agency follow-up.

What Office of Inspector General Evaluated

The objective of our review was to consolidate our follow-up activities related to OFORS system development issues. 

What Office of Inspector General Found

With regard specifically to policies and procedures, we noted that Library Services had not developed policies and procedures that established stakeholder accountability and defined program and cost management activities in the following areas: 

• Development and tracking of a Project Management Plan
• Project budget approval processes
• Regularly scheduled project budget reporting
• Cost variance analysis
• Accountability for project contractor oversight
• Tracking of corrective actions

What Office of Inspector General Recommend

• The Library, in coordination with the Office of the Chief Information Officer and  Financial Services Directorate develop and implement policies and procedures that clearly establish service Unit stakeholder accountability and define program/project and cost management responsibilities for the development and implementation of IT systems based on relevant best practices.
• Library Services perform a gap analysis to assess whether OFORS business requirements and baselined cost estimates are being met and, if not, what corrective action steps should be taken based on a cost-benefit  analysis. If corrective action steps are needed, a comprehensive project plan should be developed to manage and eliminate identified gaps.