Open Recommendations

The Bureau of Field Service should implement and document a review process to verify the completeness, accuracy, and validity of the telecommunications data and analysis used to support telecommunications reports and Budget Justifications.

The Office of Programs should create a communication improvement plan describing inter-unit communication flows between Railroad Retirement Board's Bureau of the Actuary and Research and other bureaus whose changes may impact the Bureau of the Actuary and Research's analysis.

The Office of Programs should create a communication improvement plan describing inter-unit communication flows between the Railroad Retirement Board's Office of Programs and the Bureau of Field Service.

The Office of Programs should create a set of policies and/or procedures for how the Railroad Retirement Board's primary units should communicate with one another to ensure compliance with Section OV3.04 of the Green Book.

The Bureau of Field Service should document its lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Bureau of Field Service should distribute its documented lessons learned to all applicable Railroad Retirement Board units to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Railroad Retirement Board operations.

The Bureau of Field Service should determine the number of field offices that continued to accept faxed or emailed sickness benefit applications as of June 2023, and assess the impact of such actions.

The Bureau of Field Service should determine if an official policy change should be made regarding the submission of sickness and unemployment benefit applications and claims, based on COVID-19 pandemic lessons learned and an assessment of the impact of the relaxed COVID-19 pandemic policy.

The Bureau of Field Service should create policies and procedures for Railroad Retirement Board employees to assist customers with limited English proficiency.

The Bureau of Field Service should determine the amount of resources needed to assist customers with limited English proficiency.

The Bureau of Field Service should provide resources to employees to ensure access to language assistance resources.

The Bureau of Field Service should provide training for employees on how to assist customers with limited English proficiency.

The Bureau of Information Services should work with the Bureau of Field Service to develop and implement a detailed project plan to document and formally communicate project implementation steps to modernize RRB's technology to better serve its customers and carry out the agency's primary mission. At a minimum, the Bureau of Information Services should ensure the plan contains: insights from the Veterans Affairs' design and implementation strategies of their online Veteran Benefits Administration benefits; a course of action to develop and increase availability of an advanced, comprehensive system to include online Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act and Railroad Retirement Act applications…

The Bureau of Fiscal Operations should track costs both by field office and by object class code to ensure that the costs of each of the 53 field offices and staff are readily available and determine how often the cost data will be updated.

The Bureau of Fiscal Operations should establish a process to ensure the breakdown and total cost of the Bureau of Field Serice is consistently monitored and reported.

Brown & Company recommends that the NIH complete the security categorization in accordance with FIPS Pub 199 to include documenting results and supporting rationale in the security plan.

Brown & Company recommends that the NIH conduct a system-level risk assessment for the SRA in accordance with NIST SP 800-53 requirements and NIH polices.

Brown & Company recommends that the NIH ensure that the data normalization policy and procedures comply with Federal requirements to include defining roles and responsibilities.

The Deputy Commissioner for Operations Support should ensure that access to sensitive systems is immediately suspended or disabled when a contractor is identified as not having a favorable background determination.

1. We recommend that the Director of the Census Bureau ensure that the 2030 EAE reports are released in a timely manner.

4. We recommend that the Director of the Census Bureau utilize existing processes and tools as intended in order to ensure rigorous and disciplined management of the decennial census.

5. We recommend that the Director of the Census Bureau ensure that integrated project teams (IPTS) responsible for OAs provide the required report elements and document when required report elements are not available or transparency is not permissible.

6. We recommend that the Director of the Census Bureau develop guidelines for the querying and reporting of cost data that permit comparisons between planned and actual costs.

7. We recommend that the Director of the Census Bureau extend the Bureau's analysis of scheduling delays to examine variances between originally planned baseline start and finish dates and actual start and finish dates.

10. We recommend that the Director of the Census Bureau develop mechanisms to better account for the required resources to complete EAE activities to aid in the planning and execution of future EAE operations.