Open Recommendations

We recommend that the Vermont Department of Health, Division of Substance Use Programs require subrecipients to provide and retain supporting documentation for invoices submitted for reimbursement under Federal grants as recommended in Bulletin No. 5.

We recommend that the Vermont Department of Health, Division of Substance Use Programs conduct a periodic review of supporting documentation (i.e., invoices, payroll registers, and time and effort reports) for subrecipient expenditures submitted to DSU for reimbursement.

We recommend that the Vermont Department of Health, Division of Substance Use Programs provide training to State employees responsible for conducting pre-award risk assessments of potential subrecipients of Federal grant funds.

We recommend that the Vermont Department of Health, Division of Substance Use Programs conduct annual site visits as required within the terms and conditions of the grant award that include program and fiscal reviews.

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services remediate the seven security control findings OIG identified.

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services update security controls to align with the most current NIST SP 800-53 requirements.

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services enhance policies and procedures to periodically identify and assess whether security controls are in place and operating effectively in accordance with the most current NIST SP 800-53 controls and remediate weak controls timely.

We recommend the DHS Chief Financial Officer ensure FEMA conducts payment integrity testing of the Funeral Assistance program.

We recommend the DHS Chief Financial Officer ensure FEMA assesses and conducts payment integrity testing, as applicable, for any program with COVID-19 funding that meets the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 threshold.

We recommend the DHS Chief Financial Officer ensure DHS’ Risk Management and Assurance Division follows OMB requirements for programs that do not comply with the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019, as stated in Appendix C of OMB Circular A-123.

Establish, document, and implement a process for the Department to track contractor employees' PIV cards and record the dates the cards are collected and deactivated.

Designate in writing points of accountability for overseeing the entirety of contractor employee PIV card collection and deactivation processes.

Update or supplement the DOT PIV Card Program Order to define "promptly" in all uses throughout the Order.

Develop and implement required annual training for all staff involved in contractor employee PIV card processes and a procedure to verify the training has occurred. The training attendees should include all staff listed in the DOT PIV Card Program Order who could potentially be involved and anyone else an individual OA assigns to this task.

Update or supplement the DOT PIV Card Program Order to address the deactivation process in all instances where PIV cards are no longer needed. This should include establishing the accountable officials as well as concrete metrics when deactivation should occur from when the card is no longer needed.

Implement adequate policies, procedures, and controls to ensure that public housing properties will be inspected within required timeframes.

Status

We recommend that the Office of Refugee Resettlement strengthen oversight of transfers between care provider facilities by requiring that all transfer documentation be maintained in the UC Portal and by developing procedures for tracking and reviewing that documentation.

The Commissioner, Small Business/Self-Employed Division, should continue to identify new tax accounts with a Social Security tax deferral at least through Calendar Year 2024 to ensure that all unpaid deferrals are identified for collection as appropriate.

Establish an improper payment council within HUD that consists of senior accountable officials from across the Department with a role in the effort that would work to identify risks and challenges to compliance and identify solutions as a collaborative group.

We recommend that Retirement Services develop and implement additional cost-effectivecorrective actions, aimed at the root causes of improper payments, to further reduce theimproper payments rate.

Second Consecutive Year of Non-Compliance:a. FSA should propose to the director of OMB in its next budget submission additional program integrity proposals for ECP that would help the program come into compliance. This process will unfold as part of the annual development of the President’s budget. In the budget submission, the agency should describe how each proposal would help the program come into compliance.b. If the director of OMB determines that additional funding would help the program become compliant, the agency should obligate an amount of additional funding determined by the director of OMB to intensify compliance efforts. When providing…

Rec. 2.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Director, Defense Finance and Accounting Service develop and implement additional controls to identify and review high risk payments, and to make certain that the post pay reviews are adequately identifying improper payment amounts.

Create a detailed plan for how each TXS capability will be implemented and develop benchmarks, performance measures, and milestones.

We recommend that the Health Resources and Services Administration require the 10 health centers identified in our report as having charged unallowable COVID-19 supplemental grant funding costs to refund $787,152 (less any amounts health centers voluntarily refunded as a result of our audit) to the Federal Government.

We recommend that the Health Resources and Services Administration work with the 13 health centers identified in our report that may not have properly allocated COVID-19 supplemental grant funding costs to determine what portion of the $15,056,835 is allocable to their COVID-19 supplemental grant funding and require the health centers to refund the improperly allocated funds to the Federal Government.