Federal Reports

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) efforts to meet the Geospatial Data Act of 2018 (the Act).Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD met the 13 responsibilities stated in the Act with regard to its collection, production, acquisition, maintenance, distribution, use, and preservation of geospatial data. The Act also generally requires covered agencies provide access to geospatial data and metadata to the public and enhance reporting to Congress. The 16 covered agencies, including HUD, remain in the implementation stage of the Act until the Federal Geographic Data Committee establishes formal standard for use in determining compliance with the responsibilities stated in the Act. The Act requires that HUD’s geospatial data be audited at least once every 2 years.HUD met 11 of the 13 responsibilities stated in the Act. However, HUD did not meet 2 of the 13 responsibilities stated in the Act. HUD needs to dedicate resources to fully implement its geospatial program. HUD’s lapse in its contract for services to manage its Geocode Services Center created challenges in meeting the responsibilities stated in the Act. As a result, HUD risks not having accurate and open access to geospatial data available for use by Federal, State, local, and tribal governments; the public; and other interested stakeholders to make decisions.We recommend that the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research provide adequate resources for the further development of geocoding services through the reactivation of the lapsed Geocode Service Center contract. In addition, we will reopen recommendation 1A from OIG audit report 2020-LA-0002, issued on September 24, 2020, so that HUD can implement the agreed-upon action to meet the responsibility stated in 43 U.S.C. § 2808(a)(5).

We found the fund’s financial statements, except for accounts receivable and earned revenue, to be fairly presented.

We conducted this review to provide considerations for the EPA to strengthen its corrective action certification process. When the Agency certifies to the completion of corrective actions that have not been completed, it leads to inaccurate data in the Agency’s audit tracking system, limits the OIG’s assurance that the corrective actions reported by the Agency are reliable, and may give the public and Congress the wrong impression regarding the EPA’s progress in addressing OIG recommendations.

We assessed USDA’s compliance with the 13 covered agency responsibilities in subsection 759(a) of the Geospatial Data Act.

This report contains information about recommendations from the OIG's audits, evaluations, reviews, and other reports that the OIG had not closed as of the specified date because it had not determined that the Department of Justice (DOJ) or a non-DOJ federal agency had fully implemented them. The list omits information that DOJ determined to be limited official use or classified, and therefore unsuitable for public release.The status of each recommendation was accurate as of the specified date and is subject to change. Specifically, a recommendation identified as not closed as of the specified date may subsequently have been closed.

Management and performance challenges facing the Commission and briefly assesses management’s progress

We reviewed the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) process for handling complaints, or protests, filed to request review of contracts awarded to businesses that may not have been eligible in size or certification status, as required by the offer terms. The small business protest process was created to allow self-interested offerors to police themselves and prevent awards from going to ineligible businesses. The process was intended to protect the integrity of set-aside awards and of SBA’s small business contracting certification programs.Congress authorized small business set-asides to ensure federal agencies award a fair proportion of goods and service contracts to small businesses in each industry to diversify and strengthen the American economy. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, federal agencies awarded over $154 billion to small businesses. The objectives of this audit were to determine whether SBA had effective controls in place to ensure protest decisions were properly enforced and to monitor the protest process.We found SBA had effective controls in place to ensure protest decisions were properly enforced and used to monitor the protest process. We found that only 4 percent of the small businesses protested in FY 2021 did not update their proper status in their company profile after SBA found they did not qualify for set-aside awards. We also found program officials decided 80 percent of small business protests within the required 15 business days, or within extension dates approved by the contracting officer.We made one recommendation for SBA management to strengthen controls to consistently document and monitor required protest information to ensure decisions are made in a timely manner. SBA Management agreed with the recommendation.