Open Recommendations

8. We recommend that the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and the Director of NIST direct MEP to immediatley direct Centers and their subrecipients to remove contract clauses requiring clients to take the MEP survey.

We recommend that CBP’s Office of Facilities and Asset Management establish and implement a CBP-wide policy to include designated roles and responsibilities for managing and overseeing the facility condition assessment program.

We recommend that CBP’s Office of Facilities and Asset Management establish and implement a CBP-wide process for conducting facility condition assessments that aligns with DHS’ policy; identifying, prioritizing, and resolving deficiencies identified during facility condition assessments; and reporting and monitoring deficiencies.

We recommend that CBP’s Office of Facilities and Asset Management implement a quality control process to ensure facility condition assessment data within TRIRIGA is accurate and complete.

Develop its own internal program to recover unclaimed assets instead of remaining dependent upon Fiscal Service.

We recommend that HUD's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity update protocols to promote consistent expectations for timely supervisory, legal, and headquarters reviews of complex cases.

We recommend that HUD's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity review and update the MOUs with OGC for each region to identify and remove inefficiencies that can lead to longer FHEO investigation times and OGC review times and identify best practices that can be implemented across all regions.

We recommend that HUD's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity review and update investigative processes followed by each regional office to identify best practices that can be implemented across all regions and identify and remove inefficiencies that can lead to longer investigation times.

Complete a review of transportation schedules and identify and implement actions to address transportation needs at the Denver Processing and Distribution Center.

Coordinate with the Denver Network Distribution Center to determine and implement optimal transportation schedules and reduce the number of canceled outbound trips.

Should the Navigator program continue, establish performance targets to assess recipient’s progress towards assisting underserved small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Should the Navigator program continue, enhance guidance for grant recipients to use acceptable methods to collect more complete client information reported to program officials.

Enhance the data validation procedures to ensure program officials check for accuracy and completeness of the performance data grant recipients upload to the system.

Establish and implement a risk-based process to compare performance results for Navigator program grant recipients and partner organizations that are also SBA resource partners to ensure performance is separate and discrete.

Should the Navigator program continue, update the programmatic compliance checklist to include a separate step to identify changes in partner organizations and ensure the grant recipient received proper prior approval; and implement procedures to promptly update the public website for approved partner organization changes.

Establish measurable targets and timeframes for all performance measures to ensure compliance with GPRAMA and OMB Circular A-11 requirements.

Perform an analysis of data and develop an approach to identify intended outcomes for the Climate Hubs’ goals. Based on this approach, develop outcome-based measures to adequately assess the Climate Hubs’ progress in meeting its strategic goals.

Develop KPI(s) that clearly align(s) with the strategic goals to encompass the Climate Hubs’ performance measures.

Revise the performance reporting process to follow Federal requirements on informing stakeholders how the Climate Hubs’ strategic goals are accomplished.

Lower the $400 resource level tolerance for Access to Financial Institutions application use to $0 to help ensure more accurate Supplemental Security Income resource determinations when processing initial claims, pre-effectuation review contacts, and redeterminations.

We recommend that the Indian Health Service work with Gallup Indian Medical Center and the Navajo Area Office to take action to complete background investigations, including adjudication, for staff members identified in this report as not having a satisfactory background investigation.

We recommend that the Indian Health Service work with Gallup Indian Medical Center and the Navajo Area Office to monitor background investigations to ensure all elements are completed within required timeframes in accordance with Federal requirements.

We recommend that the Indian Health Service work with Gallup Indian Medical Center and the Navajo Area Office to update standard operating procedures for background investigations to include completing background investigations for temporary staff in accordance with Federal requirements.

We recommend that the Indian Health Service work with Gallup Indian Medical Center and the Navajo Area Office to determine which staff members in contact with Indian children currently have a pending background investigation and take immediate action to supervise these staff members when children are in their care and adequately document such supervision.

We recommend that the Indian Health Service work with Gallup Indian Medical Center and the Navajo Area Office to follow through on its plans for an agencywide process to facilitate compliance with the sight and supervision requirements for staff with pending background investigations, including documentation that supervision actually occurs.