Open Recommendations

Develop interface / data transmission design documentation that specifies data fields being transmitted, controls to ensure the completeness and accuracy of data transmitted, and definition of responsibilities.

Perform a comprehensive periodic review of the appropriateness of personnel with access to systems.

Document access rights to systems to include roles, role descriptions, privileges or activities associated with each role and role or activity assignments that may cause a segregation of duties conflict.

Establish a mechanism to systematically track all configuration items that are migrated to production in order to produce a complete and accurate listing of all configuration items. Further, develop, document, implement, and enforce requirements and processes to periodically validate that all configuration items migrated to production are authorized and valid.

KPMG recommends FAA design and implement procedures to consistently and timely perform and document user account access reviews as required by standards for effective internal control systems and/or internal policy.

Report on the overall performance and progress of the 2501 Program, using grantee information from Recommendation 15, to measure and assess the level of performance the 2501 Program accomplished.

OIG recommends that the Bureau of the Comptroller and Global Financial Services, in coordination with the Bureau of Administration, develop and implement a corrective action plan that identifies the underlying reasons for the deficiencies with overseas data included in the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act Files and that identifies strategies and milestones for implementing them, to address the underlying deficiencies.

OIG recommends that the Bureau of the Comptroller and Global Financial Services update its Data Quality Plan related to reconciling Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 data to ensure that quality control procedures are performed to assess the quality of the data included in all files, including files created from Government-wide systems.

Determine the allowability of the questioned transactions and recover $9,236,974, if applicable.

Rec. A.1.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, in coordination with the Director of the Defense Health Agency and the Service Surgeons General, establish consistent policies and procedures to manage suicide risk screening and referral as part of the medical process for transitioning Service members. At a minimum, the policies and procedures should designate an organization to have responsibility for the clinical implementation of the policy.

Rec. A.1.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, in coordination with the Director of the Defense Health Agency and the Service Surgeons General, establish consistent policies and procedures to manage suicide risk screening and referral as part of the medical process for transitioning Service members. At a minimum, the policies and procedures should designate an organization to have oversight responsibility for mental health assessment processes for transitioning Service members.

Rec. A.1.c: The DoD OIG recommended that the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, in coordination with the Director of the Defense Health Agency and the Service Surgeons General, establish consistent policies and procedures to manage suicide risk screening and referral as part of the medical process for transitioning Service members. At a minimum, the policies and procedures should establish a standard mental health assessment and suicide risk screening process to be used by all Services.

Rec. A.2.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Director of the Defense Health Agency, in collaboration with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Director of Mental Health Policy and Oversight and the Director of the DoD and Veteran's Affairs Collaboration Office, identify the causes for the breaks in arranging for continuous mental health care for all Service members in care who are transitioning from the military health system to the Veteran's Health Administration and create and implement solutions to increase the number of Service members who have continuous care arranged between the military health system…

Continue the system modernization efforts that provide VA with the capability to generate the required DATA Act reporting files containing the necessary elements to meet compliance with the DATA Act. Ensure the modernization will provide the following: a. Accurate reporting of object class, program activity codes, program activity names, and all other elements required by the DATA Act. b. Award identification to allow VA to be able to develop a File C and reconcile the File C to both summary level data (Files A and B) and award level data (File D). c. Reconciliations with subsidiary systems. d. A mechanism…

3. Improve researching of all root causes of differences between the VBA source systems and the monthly GTAS balances as part of their File B reconciliations. Also, differences should be accumulated and assessed at an aggregate level. The total differences either allocated to programs, reclassified out of other programs, or attributed to MinX JVs should be researched and reported as part of the SAO sub-certification process.

Continue mapping efforts and ensure programs without entitlement codes are recorded with the correct program activity codes and names rather than defaulting to Compensation.

Investigate potential controls or processes that could identify 1358s that should be reported until the system modernization can implement a solution.

Develop and implement oversight policies and procedures to ensure component entities report financial assistance awards timely.

Coordinate with USAC management to develop and implement processes for obtaining all required data elements from awardees prior to issuing an award. This may include updating or creating program forms to include all required data elements needed for Financial Assistance Broker Submission.

Develop and implement oversight policies and procedures for monitoring data reported by component entities to ensure that all DATA Act information is being reported timely, accurately, and completely.

Enforce that documentation is maintained to evidence changes to a loan and ensure that awarding actions are entered into the source systems in a timely manner.

Update policies and procedures to require that Awardee/Recipient Legal Entity Name and Legal Entity Address data elements match SAM.gov at the time of the award and any award modifications for all contracts and grants. At the time of any award modification, update the Agency’s contracts or grants management system and the Federal Procurement Data System with any changes to these data elements.

Update the EPA’s grants management system to align with the data standards of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014, including all parts of data elements reported therein, and to allow input only of the acceptable values outlined for each data element in DATA Act Information Model Schema, Reporting Submission Specification.

Update the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Titles on an annualbasis, as required in DATA Act Information Model Schema, Practices and Procedures, Appendix F, “Update Cadence for Data Sources.”

We recommend that Department management enhance its FPDS-NG data error checking controls (including manual investigation and resolution by Contracting Officers), and controls over the input of award data in FPDS-NG to effectively identify and correct incomplete and inaccurate data within FPDS-NG prior to the Department's submissions.