Open Recommendations

The Global Engagement Center should complete the closeout process for awards currently overdue and implement procedures for the timely close out of future awards.

The Global Engagement Center should comply with Department contracting officer’s representative program standards.

The Global Engagement Center should use domain names for the Global Engagement Center’s analytics platforms that comply with Department standards.

The Global Engagement Center, in coordination with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, should require the Information Systems Security Officers for the Global Engagement Center analytics platforms to perform their duties in accordance with Department guidance.

The Global Engagement Center should implement procedures to ensure all aspects of its analytics platforms’ systems documents are completed and current, in accordance with Department standards.

The Global Engagement Center, in coordination with the Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, should conduct a cost-benefit analysis for its analytics support program.

Develop and implement guidance for Border Patrol sectors to address the expiration of the CDC order pursuant to Title 42.

Develop and implement contingency plans for increased apprehensions and processing.

Require I.R.C. §§ 6103(e)(7) and (e)(8) refresher training for all appeals officers and settlement officers in Appeals regarding employee requirements to disclose collection activity on jointly filed returns when requested from individuals who are no longer married or no longer reside in the same household, whether or not they have mirrored accounts, and the nondisclosure of prohibited taxpayer information.

Implement a process to monitor connections to the NSF network from outside the U.S., ensuring the system accurately captures the user’s country location, and take any necessary measures to protect NSF’s network and data when unauthorized connections are identified.

Provide documentation, or a full and detailed explanation, of the process Michigan used to determine that the four education-related entities that received GEER grant funds were essential for carrying out emergency educational services, providing childcare and early childhood education, providing social and emotional support, or protecting education-related jobs.

Develop and implement a process to ensure that it documents the criteria and decisions made for awarding future GEER grant funds in accordance with applicable requirements.

Take appropriate action if the documentation and other information provided by Michigan in response to the above recommendations does not support that the State followed applicable requirements.

Timely design and implement a monitoring plan that will ensure that K–12 GEER and Early On program subgrantees’ use of GEER grant funds complies with the CARES Act and other applicable Federal requirements. The monitoring plan should include protocols to review, on at least a sample basis, and using a riskbased approach, supporting documentation for subgrantee expenditures charged to the GEER grant to provide assurance that funds were used for allowable purposes.

Develop and implement a process to review, on at least a sample basis, and using a risk-based approach, supporting documentation and award calculations for the FFF Path 1 scholarship awards.

OIG recommends that the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (a) determine whether the $361,627,297 in questioned costs spent on Contract 19AQMM19C0007 are supported and allowable and (b) recover any costs determined to be unsupported and unallowable.

We recommend that Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon refund to the Federal Government the $1,890,855 of estimated net overpayments.

We recommend that Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon identify, for the high-risk diagnoses included in this report, similar instances of noncompliance that occurred before or after our audit period and refund any resulting overpayments to the Federal Government.

We recommend that Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon continue to examine 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.

We recommend that OPM work with the Contractor to develop an annual communications plan to provide summary level FLTCIP funding status to participants, so they are properly informed of the program's funding level.

Thoroughly review each COVID-19 EIDL, grant, and advance application submitted from foreign IP addresses that were approved and funded and verify eligibility. If ineligibility or evidence of potential fraud is found, SBA should stop any further or future disbursements, recover any disbursed funds, and refer fraudulent loans to OIG for investigation.

Examine controls related to foreign IP addresses and ensure these controls are more effective in future disaster processing systems.

We recommend that the New York State Department of Health refund the estimated $84,329,893 to the Federal Government for payments that did not comply with Federal and State requirements.

We recommend that the New York State Department of Health work with the transportation manager to review the payments to transportation providers that may not have complied with Federal and State requirements, resulting in an estimated $112,028,279 in Federal Medicaid reimbursement, and refund to the Federal Government any unallowable amounts.

The FHFA Office of General Counsel’s Designated Agency Ethics Official or Alternate Designated Agency Ethics Official should improve the Agency’s existing internal controls over its employee financial disclosure process by performing and documenting technical reviews and conflict of interest analysis within 60 days of receiving employee financial disclosure reports as required by OGE regulations and FHFA policy.