Federal Reports

From August 2014 to June 2017, the North Carolina Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service (Commission) and two of its larger subgrantees claimed $16,132,771 in federal and match expenditures under the AmeriCorps State and National program. CNCS-OIG’s Agreed-Upon Procedures review (AUP) of the claimed costs discovered that $2,040,402 ($777,219 in Federal costs and $1,086,090 in match costs, as well as an additional $176,876 in questionable education awards and $217 in accrued interest) were improper or unsupported.We found substantial unexplained disparities between the costs reported to the Federal government and those shown on the Commission’s internal general ledgers; inadequate timekeeping practices at the Commission; failure by subgrantees to perform required end-of-term evaluations for AmeriCorps members; and insufficient criminal history checks by subgrantees that the Commission failed to discover and correct. Overall, the Commission did not provide sufficient program and financial oversight of its subgrantees, as required by grant terms and the Commission’s own monitoring policy. Finally, we found that the Commission charged the AmeriCorps grant for the salary of an employee performing unrelated duties on another grant, after that grant was exhausted.The Commission acknowledged the importance of appropriate administrative policies and procedures and strong oversight of subrecipients. It’s comprehensive response to the draft report documented that changes responsive to our recommendations are already underway. The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) agreed with the majority of the recommendations. CNCS will make its final determination for all findings after the final report is issued.

The agreed-upon procedures (AUP) review of AmeriCorps grant funds to Serve Indiana and two subgrantees, the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County Indiana (BGCWCI) and the American Red Cross of Indiana (ARCI), identified questioned Federal costs totaling $127,090, questioned matching costs of $82,157, questioned Education Awards of $20,055 and compliance findings. Most of the questioned costs identified were caused by inadequate financial management by BGCWCI and deficiencies with the National Service Criminal History Checks (NSCHC) by ARCI. The costs tested were incurred between October 1, 2014 and December 31, 2017.Serve Indiana concurred with most of the findings but generally disagreed with the recommended amount of related questioned costs. The Corporation also concurred with most of the findings, provided a detailed plan to implement certain corrective actions, and informed CNCS-OIG that it would make an independent determination about recommended questioned costs.

The Department of Homeland Security U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) repatriates thousands of aliens every year. In this review, we sought to identify barriers to the repatriation of detained aliens with final orders of removal. Our case review of 3,053 aliens not removed within the prescribed 90-day timeframe revealed that the most significant factors delaying or preventing repatriation are external and beyond ICE’s control. The two predominant factors delaying repatriation are legal appeals and obtaining travel documents. Internally, ICE’s challenges with staffing and technology also diminish the efficiency of the removal process.

This report presents the results of our independent performance audit of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) information security program and practices in accordance with the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA). FISMA requires Federal agencies, including EEOC, to have an annual independent evaluation performed of their information security programs and practices to determine the effectiveness of such programs and practices, and to report the results of the evaluation to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).