Open Recommendations

The Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations, in coordination with Embassy N'Djamena and the Bureau of African Affairs, should develop and implement a strategy that prioritizes the disposal of Embassy N'Djamena's excess real property, in order to put funds estimated at $7.1 million to better use.

The random moment sampling methodology used by the State agency to claim Medicaid school-based administrative costs did not meet Federal requirements. Specifically, the State agency did not correctly design, conduct, and document the timestudies and disregarded CMS’s efforts to ensure that the timestudies would produce valid results.

The random moment sampling methodology used by the State agency to claim Medicaid school-based administrative costs did not meet Federal requirements. Specifically, the State agency did not correctly design, conduct, and document the timestudies and disregarded CMS’s efforts to ensure that the timestudies would produce valid results. The State agency’s failure to meet Federal requirements for statistical sampling and follow its cost allocation plan requirements resulted in $63,786,406 in improper Federal Medicaid payments.

Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Management, working as needed with Treasury's Senior Accountable Official, the Senior Procurement Executive, reporting entities, the Program Management Office, and the Office of Management and Budget should develop and implement a method and procedures to submit Treasury Forfeiture Fund financial assistance award data to the Financial Assistance Broker Submission in accordance with the reporting submission specifications established by the DATA Act Information Model Schema.

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Servicesreview the 37,124 outpatient claims totaling $1,162,562 in potential overpayments to determine whether the outpatient facilities met the requirement to bill for CCM services and o recoup any overpayments from outpatient facilities and o instruct the outpatient facilities to refund corresponding overcharges to beneficiaries

We recommend the Bureau of Actuary and Research ensure financial assistance awards containing personally identifiable information are reported in accordance with Office of Management and Budget Memorandum M-17-04.

We recommend the Bureau of Actuary and Research ensure DATA Act file assistance award preparers obtain training over the reporting of financial assistance awards containing personally identifiable information. For example, financial assistance award should be reported at the most granular level practicable while protecting personally identifiable information. The Railroad Retirement Board and Bureau of Actuary and Research should consider the different available Record Types as described in Appendix V of the report.

We recommend the Bureau of Fiscal Operations develop a plan to obtain an automated interface between the Railroad Retirement Board’s benefit paying systems and the Railroad Retirement Board’s financial system that would ensure the Railroad Retirement Board is in compliance with Office of Management and Budget Management Performance Memorandum 2016-03 and Office of Management and Budget Memorandum M-17-04.

Update DOT Order 4410.4 to include: a. Defining roles and responsibilities of DOT offices and personnel with respect to management of WCF laptop computers. b. Requiring hand receipts or a similar form whenever an accountable property asset (e.g., laptop) is assigned or unassigned to/from a user. c. Requiring record retention of records from hand receipts or a similar control with the appropriate property official. d. Establishing a timeframe for submitting Reports of Survey to OFIAM.

Establish a Board of Survey to review instances of lost or damaged WCF equipment as required by DOT Order 4410.4.

Develop and implement procedures for conducting the annual property inventory to include obtaining missing hand receipts or similar control and timely resolution of discrepancies for WCF laptops. Implementation of this recommendation could result in $2.9 million in funds put to better use.

If all of the Medicare contractors had received the postpayment edit's automatic notifications of improperly billed claims and had properly taken action since CY2013, Medicare could have saved $70,011,503

Work with the Federal Reserve System to ensure that the data loss protection replacement solutiona. functions consistently across the Board's technology platforms. b. supports rulesets that limit the exfiltration weaknesses we identified, to the extent practicable.

Develop and implement a Boardwide process to incorporate the review of data loss protection logs into employee and contractor offboarding processes to identify any potential unauthorized data exfiltrations or access.

Develop and implement procedures within FTA's Triennial and State Management Reviews to assess the necessary data to affirm that each grantee undergoing a comprehensive review carries flood insurance that complies with the FDPA. FTA's suggested corrective actions for any grantee deficiency in this area should include, at a minimum, requiring the grantee to submit to FTA documentation showing proof of flood insurance in the aggregate amount of the maximum available NFIP insurance or the amount of the Federal investment (whichever is less) for all structures required to have it.

U.S. Mint (Mint) management should finalize and implement its bureau-wide privacy program that includes a strategic organizational privacy plan for implementing applicable privacy control and procedures in accordance with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-53. (Recommendation #12)

USAID/Bosnia and Herzegovina's agreement officer determine the allowability of $272, 885 in questioned costs ($241 ineligible and $272,644 unsupported) on pages 10 and 14 of the audit report and recover any amount that is unallowable.

We recommend that OPM perform a gap analysis to identify the monitoring, inventory, and management tools that it needs to implement automated infrastructure management as required by the DCOI and OMB.

We recommend that OPM install automated power metering in all of its data centers in accordance with the requirements in the DCOI.

We recommend that OPM assess the current state of its infrastructure to accurately report data center metrics, including the correct number of data centers (including non-tiered spaces), the correct operational status of data centers, and accurate energy usage.

Perform a review of all Plans of Action and Milestone (POA&M) items closed during the audit period to include supporting documentation and re-approve their closure.

Revise current security weakness management policies and procedures (documenting within a revision history table) to require documented evidence such as calendar appointments, meeting minutes, etc. in support of POA&M closure decisions to be uploaded into CSAM.

Work with the OA CIOs to review current assessment and authorization processes and implement a validation process to ensure updated security plans, ATOs and risk assessments are reviewed and updated to reflect all system (including privacy) controls, vulnerabilities, and that current risks are clearly presented to the authorizing officials.

Work with the OA CIOs to develop mechanisms to ensure updated system security plans and assessments of security controls (that were previously assessed as not satisfied or partially satisfied) reflect current operational environments, including an accurate status of the implementation of system security controls, and all applicable security controls are properly evaluated.