Federal Reports

This narrative report is a follow-up to our fiscal year (FY) 2017 Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) submission to the Office of Management and Budget to provide findings and recommendations related to PBGC's information security programWe contracted with CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, an independent public accounting firm, to perform an evaluation of PBGC’s information security program as required by FISMA. Our independent public accountants found the maturity level of four of the five functional areas at Consistently Implemented (Level 3) and one functional area at Defined (Level 2). PBGC made progress in improving its information security and privacy program, closing 11 of 30 open recommendations from prior years. However, FY 2017 weaknesses were noted in risk management, vulnerability and configuration management, identity and access management, information security continuous monitoring, and contingency planning. This report presents 24 recommendation of which five are new. These recommendations are in addition to the FISMA-related recommendations made in the FY 2017 internal control report.

U.S. Postal Service Capital Metro Area personnel complete area-level compliance activities via printed checklist. These activities are performed to ensure policies, procedures, and standards related to safety hazards are adhered to, equipment is managed, and other internal controls are in place. Our objective was to determine if using automated tools would improve the efficiency and accuracy of checklist data collection, completion tracking, and issue resolution in the Capital Metro Area.

The objective of this alert was to emphasize to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) leadership the significant deficiencies with its internal controls and ongoing problems enforcing Federal requirements related to proper grant management and oversight of disaster funds. Given the catastrophic nature of the recent disasters, FEMA faces significant challenges ensuring its grant recipients properly manage FEMA disaster funds. This alert contains no recommendations. However, it does emphasize FEMA must implement and use effective controls to overcome existing problems with managing and monitoring funds for disaster response and recovery. As FEMA moves forward with its recovery efforts, it must hold recipients accountable for proper grant management.

2017 Financial Statement Management Letter