Open Recommendations

That the Senior Policy Committee and Office of Chief Financial Officer update the waiver process to allow for increased transparency in the approval process timeline, require that waiver justifications have accurate waiver amounts, and document how the bill was ultimately resolved.

That Office of Chief Financial Officer develop a report to track payroll bills, collections, and waivers to properly account for improper payments for payroll transactions.

That the Chief Human Capital Officer ensure employees receive appropriate retroactive compensation for delayed within grade increases totaling approximately $13,011.

That the Chief Human Capital Officer ensure that the employee is billed, or a Chief Financial Officer approved waiver is processed for the within grade salary overpayments totaling approximately $3,880.

That Office of Chief Financial Officer develop reports using data received from payroll files to assist with resolving discrepancies such as employee’s names, social security numbers, pay period covered dates, and individual transaction amounts.

That Office of Chief Financial Officer ensure journal vouchers are timely processed to be included in the monthly reconciliation process.

That Office of Chief Financial Officer establish and implement a process to review, reconcile, and resolve discrepancies identified during the three-way reconciliation process between National Finance Center reports, Treasury, and the general ledger.

That Office of Chief Financial Officer document the monitoring process in a standard operating procedure that records the process and assigns accountability for reconciling, recording and correcting errors during the monthly reconciliation

That Office of Chief Financial Officer and Chief Human Capital Officer develop and implement a process to track all unresolved errors, investigate, and record corrective actions.

That Chief Human Capital Officer and Office of Chief Financial Officer reconcile charges totaling approximately $135,612 with National Finance Center to determine if the two payments ($97,780 and $37,832) were allowable and request a correction if they are unallowable.

That the Office of Chief Financial Officer develop and implement a process to reconcile variances in employees’ payroll to detect unusual transactions

That Chief Human Capital Officer and Office of Chief Financial Officer bill, request CFO approval to waive, or collect the unallowable payments hazard pay totaling $710 and health benefits paid by the agency for $569

That the Chief Human Capital Officer ensure the incorrect retirement categories are changed and retroactively adjusted for 35 employees.

That the Chief Human Capital Officer ensure approximately $48,501 in salary overpayments for retirement are resolved by issuing Administrative Billing and Collection bills and/or requesting waiver approvals from the Chief Financial Officer.

That the Chief Human Capital Officer ensure employees that were over charged approximately $153,738 in retirement deductions receive refunds.

That the Chief Human Capital Officer review the accuracy of the refunds already issued to employees and make necessary corrections.

That the Chief Human Capital Officer and Office of Chief Financial Officer ensure agency contribution rates were accurately adjusted to reflect retroactive corrections for approximately $79,473 in underpayments and $33,217 in overpayments. 

FDA should collaborate with ATF on oversight of online tobacco retailers.

FDA should complete its rulemaking on non-face-to-face sales of tobacco products, as required by the Tobacco Control Act.

FDA should collect data to support process and outcome measures for its oversight of online tobacco retailers.

FDA should publish information and performance data on its oversight of online tobacco retailers.

We recommend that the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator direct FirstNet Authority's Chief Executive Officer to develop, implement, and execute sufficient policies and procedures to identify, select, manage, and oversee the selection of the investment opportunities to address performance gaps of the network and stakeholder needs so that the $296,299,098 in potential monetary benefits can be used more efficiently.

The Afghanistan Affairs Unit should comply with Department records management requirements for records storage and the capturing and archiving of electronic messages.

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services strengthen its system controls to detect and prevent improper payments to providers for incorrectly billed: (1) co-surgery services, (2) assistant-at-surgery services, and (3) duplicate services—which could have saved approximately $4,939,586 during our audit period.

We recommend that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services update its Medicare requirements and corresponding educational material to improve providers' understanding of the Medicare Part B billing requirements for co-surgery procedures, including: updating the Medicare Claims Processing Manual, chapter 12, section 40.8, to ensure billing providers understand that two physicians performing procedures as co-surgeons (including bilateral procedures) must append the co-surgery modifier regardless of whether they are in the same specialty or in different specialties, and providing additional education material to providers clarifying that spinal instrumentation procedure codes must be billed with a co-surgery modifier under Medicare Part B…