[Questions Concerning Financial Management of Funds for the Operation of Job Corps Centers]

The Department of the Interior requested a decision on whether: (1) it should credit Job Corps Center receipts from meals, clothing, tool kits and arts and crafts sales, corpsmember fines, and property damage restitution to Job Corps appropriations, miscellaneous Treasury receipts, or the Corpsmember Welfare Associations (CWA); (2) local banks may process CWA financial transactions instead of having them maintained in Treasury trust funds; (3) collections received from agreements between the Weber Basin Job Corps Center and the Utah Davis County School District, and the Utah State Department of Corrections, should be deposited to the Job Corps appropriation or the Treasury's miscellaneous receipts account, or handled in some other way; (4) receipts of in-kind services or property would unlawfully increase the Job Corps' appropriation; and (5) it properly operated the Department of Defense's imprest funds. Interior also requested comments on its financial treatment of and responsibility for imprest funds. GAO found that Interior: (1) should credit receipts for fines and arts and crafts sales to CWA; (2) should credit all other receipts to the Job Corps appropriation; (3) may process CWA transactions through local banks; (4) may credit monies received from the Utah agreements to the Job Corps account; (5) may accept in-kind services; and (6) should apply the same accountability standards to its imprest fund cashiers that it does to civilian imprest fund cashiers.