Federal Reports

In 2008, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an agreed upon procedures engagement of specialty pay and made nine recommendations. As of September 15, 2014. the Department had fully implemented the recommendations. We conducted this performance audit to assess the Department’s compliance with governing directives and effectiveness of controls for specialty pays. The objectives of the audit were to determine if the Department (1) properly accounted for Specialty Pay Programs and (2) complied with applicable directives related to the personnel compensation programs such as eligibility requirements. The scope included the Hazardous Duty Pay, Plainclothes Pay, and FTO Pay during Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 and FY 2017.

Our objective was to determine whether NOAA established and administered BPAs in accordance with laws, regulations, and agency guidance. We reviewed a total of 30 BPAs— 17 GSA Schedule BPAs and 13 NOAA-established BPAs. Overall, we found that NOAA did not properly establish or administer all 30 BPAs because they did not comply with at least one or more of the key FAR and NOAA requirements.

We investigated allegations that a senior official with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) made several comments that caused other DOI employees to question his ethics. He allegedly expressed his intent to assist two American Indian tribes he had worked with before becoming a DOI employee, encouraged subordinates to hire his former business associates and to arrange for the DOI to approve payment of the guarantee on a tribal loan he had been involved with before he came to the DOI, and asked a DOI employee to hire one of his relatives.We found that in the short time the senior official worked for the DOI, he made several comments that created an appearance to employees that he was planning to give preferential treatment to entities he had relationships with:• He told employees that he intended to continue assisting two tribes he had worked with before coming to the DOI. We found he assisted these tribes only once as a DOI employee, when he volunteered to schedule meetings for them with Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke.• He spoke to subordinates about hiring his former business associates and approving the loan guarantee payment. Although this did not violate regulations, his statements made his subordinates uncomfortable.• He asked a DOI employee to hire his relative. He claimed that his request had been meant as a joke, but the employee believed he had been serious.The senior official has left the DOI. We provided this report to the Deputy Secretary of the Interior for any action deemed appropriate.