Open Recommendations

Implement its procedures for monitoring the Emergency Impact Aid program.

Provide support for the inaccurate and unsupported displaced student counts at Springfield and Worcester or return $895,374 in Emergency Impact Aid program funds received based on projectable inaccurate and unsupported displaced student counts. Review support for all LEAs, or a statistically valid sample of students reported as displaced by quarter, and return any funds related to inaccurate and unsupported displaced student counts.

Provide support for the unsupported displaced student counts at Springfield and Worcester or return $40,875 in Emergency Impact Aid program funds received based on the inaccurate displaced student counts that were collected from the LEAs in the LEA application. Review support for all LEAs, or a statistically valid sample of students reported as displaced by quarter, and return any funds related to inaccurate displaced student counts.

Return $44,750 in Emergency Impact Aid program funds received based on duplicate displaced student counts. Determine whether other Massachusetts LEAs that received Emergency Impact Aid program funds reported duplicate displaced student counts and return funds for any duplicate students that are found.

Provide support showing that Springfield and Worcester properly used Emergency Impact Aid program funds for displaced students reported as children with disabilities or return about $1.43 million to the Department.

Determine whether other Massachusetts LEAs that received Emergency Impact Aid program funds separately accounted for Emergency Impact Aid program funds received for the benefit of displaced students reported as children with disabilities. For all or a statistical sample, of these LEAs that did not separately account for these funds, review support to determine whether they properly used these funds and return any funds that were not properly used.

Develop and implement procedures for providing guidance for and monitoring of future emergency funding from the Department to ensure that (1) award notifications to the LEAs identify Emergency Impact Aid program funds by student type (including children with disabilities), (2) funds received for displaced students are used for activities and services in accordance with Federal requirements, and (3) all Federal grant requirements are provided to the LEAs.

Provide support demonstrating that employees in Springfield and Worcester worked at schools with displaced students or return $304,308 to the Department.

Develop controls to provide reasonable assurance that LEAs use funds received for displaced students for activities and services related to serving displaced students.

ASFR should take steps to ensure that HHS’s suspension and debarment program has more consistent senior leadership and sufficient staffing.

ASFR should improve the case management and tracking of referrals.

We recommend that ONRR evaluate the use of ARC 10, Adjustments, to determine its effectiveness and create additional codes to capture accurate reasons for adjustments.

We recommend that ONRR develop and implement a process to prevent modification of adjustments made as a result of compliance activities without approval from ONRR.

We recommend that ONRR develop and implement processes to reduce unnecessary manual transactions as the BPRM effort is being implemented.

We recommend that the BLM update applicable manuals to detail the processes for documenting the review of the Federal exclusions list for all leasing actions.

Develop and implement policies and procedures to ensure that subgrantee agreements are executed in a timely manner, effective monitoring is performed, and subgrantees maintain an emphasis on using their CoC funds, thereby preventing similar occurrences of $3.5 million (see appendix D) in CoC funding going unused.

Adequately support the eligibility of payroll costs or repay its CoC grants $824,302 from non-Federal funds.

Adequately support the eligibility of rent costs or repay its CoC grants $55,545 from non-Federal funds.

Develop and implement additional written procedures and controls to ensure that employees charge time in accordance with program requirements and that the Authority fully documents and supports that salary and rental cost allocations are charged to its CoC grants in accordance with its cost allocation plan.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors and facility senior leaders, ensures that facility providers complete aberrant behavior risk assessments on all patients prior to initiating long-term opioid therapy.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors and facility senior leaders, makes certain that facility providers document justification for prescribing opioids and benzodiazepines concurrently.

The Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors and facility senior leaders, makes certain that facility providers communicate problematic urine test results to patients.

The Bureau of Administration should review and de-obligate all invalid unliquidated obligations without activity for more than 1 year, in accordance with Department standards, so funds of up to $8 million can be put to better use.

Rec. 2: The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer, DoD work with the Navy and the Marine Corps to ensure that the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act obligation and disbursement transactions processed through their accounting systems and journal vouchers are properly reported in USASpending.gov.

Rec. 3.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer, DoD develop procedures to confirm that DoD Components have appropriately implemented the policies DoD prescribed for coding Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act fund transactions.