Open Recommendations

M/OAA/CAS/CAM determine the allowability of $2,516,933 in ineligible questioned costs on page 19 of the audit report and recover any amount that is unallowable.

Establish a process to identify overpayments that exist on suspended or terminated Social Security numbers that the Re entitled Beneficiaries process does not detect, so the Agency can transfer and recover them via benefit withholding.

For the fifth NAS recommendation, provide (a) cost estimates that account forstaffing, enforcement, and data collection; and (b) benchmarks for completion.

For the fourth and sixth NAS recommendations, provide (a)cost estimates that account for staffing, enforcement, and data collection; (b)benchmarks for completion; and (c) potential programmatic reforms, revisions toregulations, or proposals for legislation.

Establish timeliness standards for resolving overpayments in a due process status.

Regularly monitor the debt management database, and build controls into the modernized debt system, to ensure employees take appropriate action for overpayments in a due process status.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health provide training to district management on how provide effective oversight over the pre-assessment conference program. The training should focus on reviewing the conference file and the system data for completeness and accuracy. Note: This recommendation applies to issues 1 (conference files) and 3 (system data).

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health provide training to Conference Litigation Representatives and district management on how to write specific supporting reasons for conference decisions in conference files and violation forms.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health develop MSHA Standardized Information System reports showing a summary of conference decisions that Conference Litigation Representatives can use as their monthly report and changes made to violation form attributes through conferencing decisions that MSHA can use to identify high-risk attributes and research the root causes for trends.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health provide training on how to populate MSHA’s Standardized Information System from the conference files and the importance of the importance of filling in all data fields. The training should focus on defining the required conferencing fields in MSIS to populate, identifying what documentation in the conference file to use when populating each field, and defining appropriate times to cancel a conference.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health update MSHA’s Standardized Information System with two system controls that require users to populate all required fields and prevent personnel from entering dates in the wrong order.

We recommend the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health perform periodic reviews of MSHA’s Standardized Information System data to ensure that districts are accurately populating it and marking conferences as completed in a timely manner.

We recommend that OS implement procedures to ensure that all its staff are properly listed and classified in the categories of political appointees, employees, contractors, and supervisors.

We recommend that HHS implement a policy requiring all HHS agencies and offices to implement automated controls to block employees from accessing personal email accounts from HHS networks;

We recommend that OS implement a process to ensure that all OS political appointees, employees, and contractors complete the required security awareness trainings in a timely manner; and

Ensures the State complies with the allowable costs/cost principles and subrecipient monitoring requirements.

Recovers $232,750 (2018-067) from the State, if applicable.

Recovers $71,167 (2018-068) from the State, if applicable.

Ensures that the Authority complies with the equipment and real property management requirements.

Resolve the $169,950 in questioned consulting and subaward costs and direct OSU to repay or otherwise remove the sustained questioned costs from its NSF awards.

Direct OSU to establish a policy to ensure that OSU employees are not paid as both employees and independent contractors. We noted that OSU updated OSU Policy 402- 006, Personal Services Contracts, in response to our audit; however, we determined that OSU’s revision does not sufficiently address cases such as the one described in this finding.

Direct OSU to strengthen its administrative and management procedures over awarding subawards to ensure that: a. Personnel who receive, or work for an organization that receives, a subaward contract are not involved in selecting or awarding it, or in performing administrative services for it. b. Cost-reimbursable subaward agreements do not include billing schedules. c. Subawardees submit budgets with accurate information on each employee’s salary, if the subawardees will submit invoices on a cost-reimbursable basis and OSU will charge these costs to a Federal award.

Resolve the $78,153 in questioned equipment, consultant, salary, travel, participant support, and leave payout costs and direct OSU to repay or otherwise remove the sustained questioned costs from its NSF awards.