Open Recommendations

We recommend the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Office of Field Operations, Executive Assistant Commissioner take immediate action to ensure the Blaine Command Center is connected to adequate emergency back-up power. To accomplish this, CBP should work closely with the U.S. General Services Administration to determine the most efficient and effective method for connecting the Blaine Command Center to adequate emergency back-up power.

We recommend the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Office of Field Operations, Executive Assistant Commissioner take immediate action to ensure video surveillance camera equipment at the Pacific Highway and Peace Arch land ports of entry is connected to adequate emergency backup power. As part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s corrective action plan, it should consider assessing its operational areas at the Pacific Highway and Peace Arch land ports of entry to determine any additional equipment requiring connection to adequate emergency back-up power.

We recommend the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Office of Field Operations, Executive Assistant Commissioner: conduct assessments at its land ports of entry to identify video surveillance camera equipment not connected to adequate emergency back-up power as required; and develop and implement a strategy to fund and timely resolve issues identified during the assessment of land ports of entry.

We recommend that the Department prioritize implementing PIV or other Department-approved MFA methods that cannot be bypassed to allow single-factor authentication for all applications, starting with the Department's HVAs.

We recommend that the Department prioritize the inventory, monitoring, and enforcement of existing controls as well as the controls we recommended in this report for accounts belonging to senior Government employees or accounts with elevated privileges.

We recommend that the Department establish procedures and accountability mechanisms to ensure compliance with policies regarding account management monitoring and timely disabling of inactive accounts.

Ensures the Chief Information Officer plans, conducts, and reports on a full failover test of the NCUA’s IT network to identify and correct any identified weaknesses.

We recommend that the BIA resolve the unreasonable hazard pay costs of $29,574 by requiring the Omaha Tribe to perform an analysis of the costs incurred to applicable criteria and document its determination of reasonableness.

We recommend that the BIA resolve the questioned hazard pay costs of $27,841 for Payment 1 by requiring the Omaha Tribe to provide detailed reconciliation of incurred costs to supporting documentation.

We recommend that the BIA resolve the questioned costs of $182,388 for Payment 2 by requiring the Omaha Tribe to provide detailed complete supporting documentation for the hazard pay and indirect costs.

We recommend that the BIA review the Omaha Tribe's revised policy regarding the custody of checks and document that proper controls have been implemented.

We recommend that the BIA resolve the questioned costs of $42,067 by requiring the Omaha Tribe to provide a detailed list of the questioned transactions and voided checks to the BIA for its files to ensure these transactions are not claimed for reimbursement.

We recommend that the BIA resolve the questioned costs of $10,792 by requiring the Omaha Tribe to reallocate these costs to the appropriate funding source.

We recommend that the BIA require the Omaha Tribe to revise its policy to ensure a complete property record for CARES Act-funded assets in accordance with 2 C.F.R. 200.313(d)(1).

Ensure that the IRS does not burden taxpayers in existing payment agreements when PCA contracts are ending by developing a solution to continue to service taxpayers in active payment arrangements.

We recommend that Cigna-HealthSpring of Tennessee, Inc. refund to the Federal Government the $5,987,509 of estimated overpayments.

We recommend that Cigna-HealthSpring of Tennessee, Inc. identify, for the high-risk diagnoses included in this report, similar instances of noncompliance that occurred before and after our audit period and refund any resulting overpayments to the Federal Government.

We recommend that Cigna-HealthSpring of Tennessee, Inc. continue its examination of its existing compliance procedures to identify areas where improvements can be made to ensure that diagnosis codes that are at high risk for being miscoded comply with Federal requirements (when submitted to CMS for use in CMS's risk adjustment program) and take the necessary steps to enhance those procedures.

CMS should build a strategy to strengthen its internal controls for ensuring the accuracy of Part B drug payments.

CMS should actively review current guidance related to the areas identified in this report and determine whether additional guidance would ensure more accurate and consistent ASP calculations.

We recommend the Office of the Secretary establish aDHS oversight entity to ensure National Instant Criminal Background CheckSystem compliance in DHS, which should include:a. coordinating with the Attorney General to resolve open dispositions thatno longer have available information and discontinue use ofadministrative closure dispositions; andb. developing a risk-based strategy for components to assess missingcriminal history records and submit missing dispositions.

We recommend the DHS Office of the Secretary establisha mechanism to track and ensure timely responses to NICS inquiries anddevelop and implement a process to include immigration status at the time ofinquiry for immigration-related inquiries.

We recommend the United States Coast Guard,Assistant Commandant for Human Resources, establish a process for thePersonnel Service Center to notify the Coast Guard Investigative Service of thecompletion of dishonorable discharges and that CGIS personnel enter theminto NICS data.

[Description omitted; DOJ has determined that this recommendation contains information that is limited official use or classified.]

[Description omitted; DOJ has determined that this recommendation contains information that is limited official use or classified.]