Open Recommendations

We recommend that management across the Department conduct training sessions for relevant personnel involved in financial record-keeping to enhance their understanding of the importance of tracking construction projects performed by or with other Federal agencies. This will help ensure compliance with established procedures and controls.

The Office of Inspector General recommends the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs update Policies and Procedures Manual 201, Information Release Policy, to include the “anti-gag” statement from the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012, as amended.

We recommend that Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES’ management develop and implement grant management policies and procedures to ensure timely preparation and submission of the required reports.

We recommend that the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration ensure that providers correct the 120 instances of provider noncompliance identified in this report.

We recommend that the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration improve its oversight and monitoring of providers.

We recommend that the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration work with providers to improve their facilities, staffing, and training.

The Chief, Facilities Management and Security Services, should develop standard operating procedures for sensitive document safeguarding and destruction to ensure uniformity and consistency across all IRS facilities.

The Chief, Facilities Management and Security Services, should immediately evaluate the 110 facilities not covered under the national or local contracts to ensure that the IRS has sensitive document safeguarding and destruction procedures in place that comply with NIST guidelines.

The Chief, Facilities Management and Security Services, should ensure that all bins that do not meet requirements are replaced at the Kansas City, Missouri, IRS facility.

The Chief, Facilities Management and Security Services, should develop processes and procedures to periodically inspect bins to identify damaged and altered bins and work with local subcontractors to replace the bins at all IRS facilities.

The Chief, Facilities Management and Security Services, should ensure that all bins at every IRS facility are labeled properly to instruct employees to only discard sensitive documents in locked bins solely used for destruction purposes.

The Chief, Facilities Management and Security Services, should ensure that Document 13420, The Sensitive Document Destruction Bin, information flyer is displayed throughout all IRS locations to instruct employees on the importance of properly disposing sensitive documents.

The Chief, Facilities Management and Security Services, should perform annual inspections of all facilities used by subcontractors for sensitive document destruction to ensure compliance with NIST guidelines (e.g., shred, burn, mulch, pulp, or pulverize sensitive documents beyond recognition and reconstruction).

The Chief, Facilities Management and Security Services, should complete an up-to-date cost-benefit analysis to ensure that there is optimal bin size and number of bins based on the number of employees at all 387 IRS facilities covered under the national contract.

The Chief, Facilities Management and Security Services, should designate FMSS personnel on-site at each of the IRS facilities whose responsibilities are to verify what is serviced matches to the subcontractor CODs and to ensure that only full bins are retrieved for destruction.

The Chief, Facilities Management and Security Services, should develop processes and procedures to ensure that only full bins are serviced and scanned and compare invoices to bin scan reports to only pay for those bins scanned.

Develop, implement, and document key internal control activities RBS identifies as necessary to ensure RBS State Offices are conducting and documenting the results of annual onsite reviews to ensure the grantee follows Federal regulations and the terms and conditions of the grants.

Develop, implement, and document key internal control activities RBS identifies as necessary to ensure RBS State Offices approve reimbursement requests for grantees who requested reimbursement for expenses prior to the date the Financial Assistance Agreement was executed.

We recommend that FWS require the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to resolve the $7,801 (Federal share) in costs associated with the unsupported equipment usage rates.

We recommend that FWS require the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to resolve the $2,996,019 Federal share of questioned costs related to unsupported in-kind contributions.

We recommend that FWS require the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to develop and implement Department-wide procedures for tracking, verifying, and certifying volunteer time that align with those of regular personnel services, including a requirement that individual volunteers verify their hours accurately reflect actual hours worked to ensure proper segregation of duties.

We recommend that FWS require the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to develop and implement a formalized process to calculate, document, and update equipment usage rates that align with Federal criteria and FWS guidance.

We recommend that the Orphaned Wells Program Office develop and implement policy to require review of all quarterly reports in a timely manner and complete any outstanding reviews.

We recommend that the Orphaned Wells Program Office develop a process to ensure all financial reports are reviewed in a timely manner.

We recommend that the Orphaned Wells Program Office require the Interior Business Center to design and implement an updated risk assessment policy or checklist that requires financial assistance officers to document consideration of all applicable risk factors and document mitigating measures for each risk factor identified before awarding Orphaned Wells Programs Office grants.