Open Recommendations

We recommend the Executive for Information Services/Chief Information Officer (I), in coordination with the Chief Operating Officer (C) establish a timeline for review and approval of authorization documents.

We recommend the Executive for Information Services/Chief Information Officer (I), in coordination with the Chief Operating Officer (C) obtain authorizations to operate for each of the classified systems or disallow them in accordance with NARA and Federal policy.

Identify the participants of the CPSC Risk Executive Council and define specific tasks/milestones for implementing the proposed Risk Management Framework.

Develop an Enterprise Architecture that includes a comprehensive IT security architecture using the CIO Council's guidance and incorporate this into the Security Control Documents.

Require the Municipality to develop and implement a financial management system in accordance with HUD requirements and ensure that $3,213,572 in HOME funds drawn from HUD between July 1, 2009, and December 31, 2011, can be traced to a level which ensures that such funds have not been used in violation of the restrictions and prohibitions of applicable statutes or reimburse the HOME program from non-Federal funds.(Footnote 2) Total disbursements of $3,523,723 were adjusted to consider $173,978 questioned in recommendation 1B, $86,567 questioned in recommendation 1D, and $49,606

Determine the eligibility of the $537,773 disbursed for the Ciudad de Ensueo project and reevaluate the feasibility of the activity. (Footnote 9) Total disbursements of $538,973 were adjusted to consider $1,200 questioned in recommendation 1F. The Municipality must reimburse its HOME program from non-Federal funds if HUD determines the activity to have been terminated.

The CIO should conduct the consolidation/virtualization analysis to investigate the impact of consolidating or virtualizing two major application domains (NISP and ERA) and the General Support System (NARANET) as planned, or evaluate other alternatives to increase the average server utilization rate.

We recommended the Under Secretary for Health require VA medical centers to conduct comprehensive physical inventories of stocked prosthetic supplies, adjust Prosthetics Inventory Package and Generic Inventory Package quantities on hand to match physical inventory quantities, and begin eliminating identified excess inventories and purchasing supplies to avoid identified shortages.

Recommendation is not publicly available.

Establish and implement procedures to reassess the safe harbor percentage and rates periodically to ensure that they are reasonable. HUD should retain the documentation justifying the calculation of those percentages and rates. In addition, HUD should assess the feasibility of requiring the agencies to periodically justify and retain documentation showing the reasonableness of using the maximum rates, or lower them as appropriate.

(b) Implement the text description functionality in the MyAmeriCorps Portal to allow grantee personnel –to document the Compelling Personal Circumstances justifications. (c) Implement monitoring controls requiring a secondary level of review of each approved partial education award.

Direct responsible grantees to justify the use of $66,849,658 that it disbursed for cancelled Block Grant program activities or repay HUD from non-Federal funds.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's New York City Office of Community Planning and Development instruct City officials to reimburse from non-Federal funds $93,436 for ineligible costs charged to HPRP; specifically, $59,430 related to payments for rental arrears over the 6-month eligibility requirement and $34,006 for payments issued directly to participants.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's New York City Office of Community Planning and Development instruct City officials to provide documentation to justify the $329,937 in unsupported salary costs incurred between June and September 2010. Any unsupported costs determined to be ineligible should be reimbursed from non-Federal funds.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's Detroit Office of Public Housing require the Commission to reimburse its Capital Fund $1,539,629 from non-Federal funds for the ineligible payments cited in this finding.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's Detroit Office of Public Housing require the Commission to return the $411,228 in excess capital fund draws cited in this finding.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's Detroit Office of Public Housing require the Commission to provide supporting documentation or reimburse its Capital Fund $394,683 from non-Federal funds for the unsupported costs cited in this finding.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's Detroit Office of Public Housing require the Commission to reimburse its Capital Fund $13,085 from non-Federal funds for the inappropriately earned interest cited in this finding.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's Detroit Office of Public Housing require the Commission to reimburse its appropriate programs $180,649 from non-Federal funds for the ineligible payments cited in this finding.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's Detroit Office of Public Housing require the Commission to provide supporting documentation or reimburse its appropriate programs $30,236 from non-Federal funds for the unsupported costs cited in this finding.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's Detroit Office of Public Housing require the Commission to reimburse its Capital Fund $127,050 from non-Federal funds for the ineligible payments cited in this finding.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's Detroit Office of Public Housing require the Commission to reimburse its operating fund $107,692 from non-Federal funds for ineligible payments cited in this finding.

The Office of Programs should work with the management control review committee to revise management control documentation to be consistent with Government Accountability Office guidance for internal controls.

Support or repay from non-Federal funds any amounts that it cannot support, including $1,568,245 to its operating fund and $973,126 to its capital fund paid for (1) contracts that were improperly procured, (2) contract overpayments, or (3) contract payments made outside of the contract effective dates.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's Buffalo Office of Community Planning and Development reimburse from non-Federal funds $162,923 ($134,711 $28,212) expended on ineligible costs pertaining to street improvement projects not done and a duplicate reimbursement.

We further recommend that the Director of HUD's Buffalo Office of Community Planning and Development instruct the City to provide documentation to justify the $1,982,988 in unsupported costs associated with street improvement expenditures incurred between June 2007 and October 2009. Any unsupported costs determined to be ineligible should be reimbursed from non-Federal funds.

We recommend that the Director of HUD's Buffalo Office of Community Planning and Development instruct the City to provide documentation to justify the $20,143,219 ($4,902,754 $15,240,465) in unsupported transactions recorded in the CDBG program income account. Any receipts determined to be unrecorded program income should be returned to the CDBG program, and any expenditures determined to be ineligible should be reimbursed from non-Federal funds.

We further recommend that the Director of HUD's Buffalo Office of Community Planning and Development instruct the City to reimburse from non-Federal funds the $304,506 related to ineligible clean and seal code enforcement costs.

We further recommend that the Director of HUD's Buffalo Office of Community Planning and Development instruct the City to provide documentation to justify the $716,622 ($545,607 $24,069 $146,946) in unsupported clean and seal costs incurred so that HUD can make an eligibility determination. Any costs determined to be ineligible should be reimbursed from non-Federal funds.

Establish Procedures to Track Source of Facts Provided to the Public and Congress.

Require Identification of Federal Crime as Part of Documenting Predication.

Consider Revising Attorney General's Guidelines and DIOG to Reinstate Prohibition on Retention of Irrelevant First Amendment Material from Public Events.

Clarify When First Amendment Cases Should Be Classified as "Acts of Terrorism" Matters.

The Office of Programs should develop a mechanism and procedures to update the unilateral freeze codes in the Payment Rate and Entitlement History system when the RRB obtains new information that changes the status of the freeze.

The Railroad Retirement Board's Bureau of Actuary should improve its documentation of the sampling employed in the Financial Interchange process by: Creating a single document that explains the process used to create the sampling frame and sample, including source database(s) used, the variables of interest, and the programs/media used to execute the process steps. The documentation should be written such that a person with the requisite skills, but without knowledge of the Financial Interchange calculations, could understand and replicate the sampling process.

The Railroad Retirement Board's Bureau of Actuary should test more than one post-stratification method and employ the method that minimizes the sampling error.

Require the Authority to account for $134,889 in tenant rent receipts or repay any unsupported amounts to its public housing operating program from nonfederal funds.

Require the Authority to provide support for $264,229 in disbursements or repay any unsupported costs to its public housing operating and capital improvement program from nonfederal funds.

Require the Authority to reimburse its public housing program $2,250 for ineligible costs using non-federal funds.

Require the Authority to support the $27,097 in unreasonable costs or reimburse its public housing and capital improvement program from nonfederal funds.

Require the Authority to provide support that $446,918 in contracts were fairly and openly competed or reimburse its public housing and capital improvement program from nonfederal funds.

Require the Authority to provide support for the $275,282 in capital fund drawdowns or reimburse its capital improvement program from nonfederal funds.

FSA should recover the $815,612 in HIP overpayments that have been identified, and recover any other overpayments resulting from RMA’s review of the AIPs’ changes to cause of loss and date of damage

We recommend that the Chief Operating Officer for Federal Student Aid instruct SLMA to adjust its special allowance billings for loans associated with Bond 93F that became ineligible for the 9.5 percent floor calculation, as described in the finding, and return alloverpayments to the Department (for which we estimate to be about $12.3 million).

We recommend that the Chief Operating Officer for Federal Student Aid instruct SLMA to identify the loans associated with Bonds 93B, 93G, and 93H that became ineligible for the 9.5 percent floor calculation, as described in the finding, and adjust its specialallowance billings for the affected loans in the quarters ended June 30, 2002, through June 30, 2005, and return all overpayments to the Department (for which we estimate to be about $10 million).

We recommend that the Chief Operating Officer for Federal Student Aid instruct SLMA to disclose any other instances, at any of its subsidiaries (e.g., NLMA, Southwest Student Services Corporation, Student Loan Funding Resources, Student Loan FinanceAssociation), of loans billed under the 9.5 percent floor calculation after the eligible taxexempt bond issue matured and after the loans were refinanced with funds derived from an ineligible funding source and, if necessary, adjust its special allowance billings for all affected loans and return all overpayments to the Department.

Assess its discovery obligations regarding Stellar Wind-derived information in international terrorism prosecutions.

Carefully consider whether it must re-examine past cases to see whether potentially discoverable but undisclosed Rule 16 or Brady material was collected by the NSA under the program, and take appropriate steps to ensure that it has complied with its discovery obligations in such cases.

As part of the [Redacted] project, the Justice Department's National Security Division (NSD), working with the FBI, should collect information about the quantity of telephone numbers and e-mail addresses disseminated to FBI field offices that are assigned as Action leads and that require offices to conduct threat assessments.