Open Recommendations

We recommend that OSMRE provides direction to the Kentucky Division of Abandoned Mine Lands to properly classify projects and apply Build America, Buy America Act requirements to any ongoing and finished projects, as necessary.

We recommend that OSMRE require the Kentucky Division of Abandoned Mine Lands to use the correct subaccount in its Kentucky Human Resource Information System according to OSMRE's Federal Assistance Manual and Guidance on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Abandoned Mine Land Grant Implementation.

We recommend that OSMRE update the Federal Assistance Manual to require grant recipients to track time and all costs allocable to a specific reclamation project, such as direct project costs, planning and design, construction monitoring and inspection, and other necessary administrative expenses.

We recommend that OSMRE require the Kentucky Division of Abandoned Mine Lands to train staff on updated procedures for allocating time to specific reclamation projects.

We recommend that OSMRE assess the Kentucky Division of Abandoned Mine Lands' implementation of the Office of Administrative Services approved training plan to ensure branch managers, supervisors, and inspectors understand the importance of executing contracts and change orders in accordance with the division's policies.

We recommend that OSMRE assess the Kentucky Division of Abandoned Mine Lands' implementation of the Office of Administrative Services approved monitoring plan to conduct quarterly reviews of abandoned mine land projects and speak with branch managers, inspectors, and supervisors to ensure they are obtaining change orders before the work is initiated.

We recommend that OSMRE implement policies and procedures to ensure that leave paid to employees is properly allocated to the Federal grant on which it was earned and does not exceed the value of benefits earned on that grant.

We recommend that OSMRE require the Kentucky Division of Abandoned Mine Lands to ensure the payroll expenses are properly supported by personnel activity reports reflecting actual time worked on Federal grant programs.

We recommend that OSMRE resolve the unallocable payout of accrued employee sick leave totaling $25,823.

We recommend that OSMRE resolve the Federal share of questioned costs related to unreasonable costs totaling $165,763.

We recommend that OSMRE require the Kentucky Division of Abandoned Mine Lands to review employees' work descriptions to determine the correct subaccounts to use according to OSMRE's Federal Assistance Manual and Guidance on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Abandoned Mine Land Grant Implementation, as well as Kentucky's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act abandoned mine land grant application.

We recommend that OSMRE update policies and procedures to require States to obtain OSMRE determination of Build America, Buy America Act applicability on Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act-funded abandoned mine land projects that the State believes are not subject to this provision of the Act.

(U) Rec.1.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Executive Director, Army Contracting Command-Rock Island develop and implement procedures to ensure that Army contracting personnel review contractor invoices before payment for the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program V contract in support of the Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti.

(U) Rec.1.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Executive Director, Army Contracting Command-Rock Island ensure that the procuring contracting officer performs a review of the allowability, allocability, and reasonableness of the $240.1 million in payments identified in this report, and any subsequent payments made to the contractor for the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program contract services in support of the Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti.

(U) Rec.1.c: The DoD OIG recommended that the Executive Director, Army Contracting Command-Rock Island ensure that the procuring contracting officer takes all necessary corrective actions, including recouping overpayments, correcting underpayments, and addressing other identified deficiencies, based on Recommendation 1.b.

(U) Rec. 2: The DoD OIG recommended that the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Americas Security Affairs, notify the Joint Staff J5, U.S. Southern Command, and U.S. Army South of a decision in a timely manner on the continuation or termination of the DoDs support for the Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti.

In January 2025, we alerted the Chief, Direct File, to our concern that taxpayers were allowed to submit incorrect tax returns through Direct File. We recommended that Direct File immediately implement programming to ensure that it did not submit tax returns with errors that it could alert the taxpayer to fix, based upon information readily available.

The Chief Information Officer should ensure that the site owners using manual documentation or a permission workflow method of access control review the SPO logs to ensure that only authorized users with a business need have access.

The Chief Information Officer should ensure that all SPO sites identify their access control method.

The Chief Information Officer should implement an automated tool that can identify and remove sensitive data (such as PII and FTI) on SPO sites.

The Chief Information Officer should implement an automated tool that can block restricted file types on SPO sites.

The Chief Information Officer should establish a process to identify and update sites that are missing appropriate site administrators.

The Chief Information Officer should coordinate with the Office of Chief Counsel to identify opportunities to recover, from the original contractor, the amount paid for the SharePoint 2013 extended service contracts due to delays and deficiencies in the original contractor's work.

The Chief Information Officer should ensure that future information technology contracts include milestones, deliverables, and/or more stringent performance monitoring.

The Commissioner, LB&I Division, should ensure that future initiatives involving complex tax returns do not duplicate steps in the compliance risk analysis process and consider the statute of limitations to allow examiners sufficient time to review and take appropriate compliance actions.