Open Recommendations

Update grant financial management policies and procedures to include consistently using unique grant identification number when recording grant and state matching expenditures.

Review the federal grant, interest and state match unsupported questioned costs, totaling $7,543,215.76 and either provide adeduate supporting documentation or make the necessary adjustments to the reported matching and federal expenditures.

Implement procedures to ensure that all federal and state matching expenditures are supported by appropriate documentation and retained in accordance with federal record-keeping requirements.

Review the questioned Election Security costs of $10,000 and either provide adequate supporting documentation or make the necessary adjustments to the reported matching and federal expenditures.

Revise policies and procedures for financial reporting to ensure GL costs are reconciled with supporting documents to reflect accurate reporting of financial information.

Work with ARC to resolve the questioned costs of $85,745 for non-ARC matching personnel, fringe benefits, contractual, and indirect costs.

Revise their policies and procedures to ensure the timely preparation and submission of financial and progress reports in accordance with the Uniform Guidance and ARC grant agreement requirements.

We recommend that the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology instruct the ITL Director to create a strategic plan for the NVD that reflects the NVD’s role in the overall vulnerability management ecosystem, establishes priorities, and ensures long term sustainability of processing capacity.

We recommend that the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology instruct the ITL Director to establish a backlog management plan that includes (1) an analysis of constraints and capacity, (2) a target date for resolving the backlog, (3) milestones to meet that goal, and (4) processes that prioritize critical vulnerabilities.

We recommend that the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology instruct the ITL Director to define in policy a strategy to minimize NIST’s efforts to calculate severity scores. Implementing this recommendation can put approximately $800,000 to better use.

We recommend that the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology instruct the ITL Director to ensure that the NVD has an efficient method for external parties to contribute to the enrichment of CPE applicability statements.

We recommend that the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology instruct the ITL Director to immediately begin coordinating with CISA to avoid duplicate enrichment activities and ensure the best use of government resources. Implementing this recommendation will prevent duplicate efforts that have already led to $200,000 in waste.

We recommend that the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology instruct the ITL Director to develop a communication strategy to keep stakeholders informed and instill confidence in the NVD.

Develop a time-phased plan to implement a process to monitor servicing timeframes and alert officials of upcoming deadlines.

Develop and implement a time-phased plan to establish procedures that can be accomplished with current resource levels. These procedures need to include follow-up actions for when: (1) borrowers do not respond to physical inspection results, and (2) projects have unresolved physical deficiencies.

Implement interim procedures to follow-up with any borrowers that have not responded to inspection results or addressed unresolved deficiencies.

Develop and implement a process to oversee that relevant servicing documentation is uploaded to a project’s electronic customer file.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should develop an electronic case management system and associated internal controls to collectively manage unidentified payments, hardcore payment tracer referrals, and other inventory streams, across the IRS’s Accounting Operations.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should until an electronic case management system is established, develop an interim process to track hardcore payment tracer referrals.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should establish evaluative metrics for unidentified payments and hardcore payment tracer referrals that will help assess the efficiency and effectiveness of these programs. This should include, but not be limited to, establishing evaluative metrics associated with receipts, rejections, closures, and timeliness, nationwide and for each Tax Processing Center.

Implement a regular assessment and briefing of all enterprise-level risks, such as through discussion of risk profiles at ERM Council meetings, on a frequency commensurate with risk exposure to monitor that each risk is managed within risk appetite.

Clarify how the ERM Council should communicate risk results to agency officials who implement decisions.

The Facility Executive Director ensures staff complete the mental health nursing admission screen note, with veterans’ legal status, for admissions to the inpatient mental health unit and develops a plan to monitor for sustained compliance.

The Chief of Staff ensures documentation of discussions between the prescriber and veteran on the risks and benefits of newly prescribed medications prior to administration and develops a plan to monitor for sustained compliance.

The Chief of Staff ensures veterans’ discharge instructions are written in easy-to-understand language and include the purpose of each medication.