Open Recommendations

Rec. C.3.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Procurement), develop and implement a requirement to provide periodic training to termination contracting officers that covers the requirement to document prenegotiation objectives in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 15.406-1(b).

On November 29, 2022, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration recommended that the Director and Deputy Director, Submission Processing, Wage and Investment Division, protect the identity of IRS employees signing manually generated tax processing correspondence by removing their first name and replacing it with the employee’s title, Mr., Ms., or a gender-neutral title, in accordance with Chief Counsel Notice N(30)000-317.

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should ensure that all tax processing correspondence is revised to remove the signing IRS employee’s first name and replace it with the employee’s title.

Reconsider the National Personnel Records Center’s definition of medical emergency, make any necessary changes to internal policy, communicate the definition to veterans and stakeholders, and implement procedures for how medical emergency requests are made and how they are validated.

Conduct a study to expand Access to Financial Institutions searches between the Supplemental Security Income initial application and subsequent eligibility redeterminations.

Develop a specific, multiyear plan for how the BOP will evaluate its ongoing and proposed changes to the employee discipline process, as well as key performance indicators, by year, to decrease the backlog of its employee misconduct cases and adjudications.

Develop and implement a reliable method to calculate appropriate staffing levels at the enterprise and institution levels. Such a method should seek to baseline appropriate staffing levels for the current inmate population and be flexible to account for future population changes overall and among institutions, as well as other factors (e.g., institution security level and layout) that determine appropriate staffing levels. Once such a method is developed, communicate the need to align funding levels with appropriate staffing levels to executive and legislative branch stakeholders.

(U) Rec. 4.a.1: The DoD OIG recommended that the Principal Director of Defense Pricing and Contracting, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment direct the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council to revise Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement Procedures, Guidance, and Information Part 201, "Federal Acquisition Regulation System," Subpart 201.6, "Career Development, Contracting Authority, and Responsibilities," to require contracting officers to conduct an initial review of the contracting officer's representative file within a set timeframe, such as within 6 months, of designating a contracting officer's representative to ensure that the contracting officer's representative is complying with the designation…

(U) Rec. 4.a.2: The DoD OIG recommended that the Principal Director of Defense Pricing and Contracting, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment direct the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council to revise Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement Procedures, Guidance, and Information Part 201, "Federal Acquisition Regulation System," Subpart 201.6, "Career Development, Contracting Authority, and Responsibilities," to require contracting officers to, after the initial review, establish a contracting officer's representative file review frequency not less than once annually, based on the contracting officer's assessment of the risks, complexity, and value of the contract.

(U) Rec. 4.a.3: The DoD OIG recommended that the Principal Director of Defense Pricing and Contracting, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment direct the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council to revise Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement Procedures, Guidance, and Information Part 201, "Federal Acquisition Regulation System," Subpart 201.6, "Career Development, Contracting Authority, and Responsibilities," to require contracting officers to provide comments to the contracting officer's representative and requiring activity within 30 days of a review on the contracting officer's representative's level of compliance with designation letter requirements and require the contracting officer's representative to take corrective…

(U) Rec. 4.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Principal Director of Defense Pricing and Contracting, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment revise DoD Instruction 5000.72, "DoD Standard for Contracting Officer's Representative (COR) Certification," March 26, 2015 (Incorporating Change 2, November 6, 2020), to align with the updated contracting officer's representative file review requirements in Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement Procedures, Guidance, and Information Part 201, "Federal Acquisition Regulation System," Subpart 201.6, "Career Development, Contracting Authority, and Responsibilities."

(U) Rec. 4.d: The DoD OIG recommended that the Principal Director of Defense Pricing and Contracting, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment develop and implement plans, in coordination with the Principal Deputy Chief Information Officer, Office of the DoD Chief Information Officer, to ensure that contracting officers are aware of the DoD technical experience requirements for contracting officer's representatives who monitor contractor cybersecurity services or accept cybersecurity deliverables.

(U) Rec. 4.e: The DoD OIG recommended that the Principal Director of Defense Pricing and Contracting, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment direct the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council to revise Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement Part 239, "Acquisition of Information Technology," Subpart 239.71, "Security and Privacy for Computer Systems," to reflect current DoD cybersecurity policies.

(U) Rec. 5: The DoD OIG recommended that the Defense Acquisition University President revise the DoD contracting officer's representative training curriculum and materials, in coordination with the Principal Director of Defense Pricing and Contracting and the Director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, to include detailed instructions for contracting officer's representatives to review and validate that contractor payment requests, including interim vouchers, are commensurate with performance to prevent improper payments.

We recommend that the CBP Commissioner and the ICEDirector coordinate with the DHS Secretary to contract with an independent,federally funded research and development center to complete a fullassessment of the staffing needs at the Southwest border and strategicallyimplement recommendations based on the assessment. The assessmentshould:• review existing staffing models and methodology for deploying personnelat the Southwest border and across the country and the impact ofcontinuously relying on details and overtime to temporarily fill staffinggaps; and• include factors within and outside of DHS’ control that are affectingworkloads and exacerbating staffing challenges to identify solutions thecomponents can accomplish as well as those…

We recommend that the CBP Commissioner and the ICE Director communicate the duties and responsibilities of the SBCC moreeffectively to frontline staff.

Develop an infrastructure strategy to increase the overall effectiveness of facilities management. The strategy should align infrastructure decisions with the BOP's mission; include one or more methodologies for allocating resources; and include short, medium, and long-range planning goals. As part of this strategy, the BOP should consider incorporating a portfolio-based repair model; a retention or disposal decision model; and business case analyses for new construction, as appropriate.

Develop and implement key performance indicators to track whether the BOP is meeting its infrastructure goals.

Establish an automated and comprehensive inventory for managing and tracking software licenses.

Develop and implement a comprehensive software licensing policy that includes a methodology for analyzing and maintaining software usage data to determine the software license needs of the agency.

Determine the allowability of the questioned transactions and recover $14,886,138, if applicable.

We recommend that the Office of Refugee Resettlement include a review of compliance by ICFs and EISs with all background check requirements and facility access as a part of ORR's routine site visit monitoring.

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services work with the MACs to recover $35,560 in improper payments made to providers for the 128 sampled enrollee days that did not meet Medicare requirements. 

Now that CMS has reinstituted most program integrity measures, we also recommend that CMS take the following steps, which if in effect during the audit period could have saved Medicare an estimated $579,667,510 during that period: Conduct medical reviews of psychotherapy services, including services provided via telehealth, to verify that the services are documented and billed in accordance with Medicare requirements.

Now that CMS has reinstituted most program integrity measures, we also recommend that CMS take the following steps, which if in effect during the audit period could have saved Medicare an estimated $579,667,510 during that period: Implement system edits for psychotherapy services, including services provided via telehealth, to prevent payments for services that were billed incorrectly.