Recommendation: The Director of ORR should clarify in its grant announcements the information and supporting documentation applicants are required to provide in their grant applications with respect to their state licensing status, eligibility, and allegations and concerns. (Recommendation 1).

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families: Office of Refugee Resettlement
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of ORR should take steps to develop, and ensure that officials reviewing grant applications implement, a process to verify the accuracy and completeness of information reported by grant applicants on state licensing status, eligibility, allegations and concerns. (Recommendation 2).

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families: Office of Refugee Resettlement
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of ORR should ensure that the grant review process includes a documented review of applicants' past performance on ORR grants for those that have previously received grants to care for unaccompanied children. This could include, for example, a systematic review of previous quarterly and annual performance reports and a review of corrective actions issued by all ORR monitoring staff to all ORR-funded facilities previously operated by the applicant. (Recommendation 3).

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families: Office of Refugee Resettlement
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of ORR should clarify in its instructions to grantees the information they are required to report on state licensing citations in their quarterly performance reports. (Recommendation 4).

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families: Office of Refugee Resettlement
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of ORR should take steps, such as through guidance or training, to ensure that project officers clearly understand the requirement that grantees report state licensing citations at any of their facilities within 24 hours and include state licensing citations in their quarterly performance reports. (Recommendation 5).

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families: Office of Refugee Resettlement
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of ORR should work with state agencies that license ORR-funded facilities to develop a plan for mutual information sharing, including processes for ORR outreach to states during the grant application review process and ongoing information sharing on ORR and state monitoring processes and identified deficiencies. (Recommendation 6).

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families: Office of Refugee Resettlement
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of ORR should ensure that ORR provides and maintains a current point of contact for each state agency that licenses ORR grantees to facilitate information sharing regarding ORR-funded facilities. (Recommendation 7).

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families: Office of Refugee Resettlement
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of ORR should develop a plan—including roles, responsibilities, and timeframes—to guide and focus ORR's efforts to meet its goals to:

• conduct an audit of each facility's compliance with ORR standards on preventing and responding to sexual assault, as required under the Interim Final Rule,
• conduct on-site monitoring visits to each facility at least every 2 years in accordance with ORR policy, and
• report any noncompliance to the facility within 30 days of the site visit, in accordance with ORR policy.

(Recommendation 8).

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families: Office of Refugee Resettlement
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The FEMA Administrator should ensure that the GMM program management office finalizes the organizational change management plan and time frames for implementing change management actions. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Status: Open

Comments: DHS concurred with this recommendation. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to implement it.

Recommendation: The FEMA Administrator should ensure that the GMM program management office updates the program schedule to address the leading practices for a reliable schedule identified in this report. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Status: Open

Comments: DHS concurred with this recommendation. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to implement it.

Recommendation: The FEMA Administrator should ensure that the FEMA Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) defines sufficiently detailed planned evaluation methods and actual evaluation methods for assessing security controls. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Status: Open

Comments: DHS concurred with this recommendation. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to implement it.

Recommendation: The FEMA Administrator should ensure that the FEMA OCIO approves a security assessment plan before security assessment reviews are conducted. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Status: Open

Comments: DHS concurred with this recommendation. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to implement it.

Recommendation: The FEMA Administrator should ensure that the GMM program management office follows DHS guidance on preparing corrective action plans for all security vulnerabilities. (Recommendation 7)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Status: Open

Comments: DHS concurred with this recommendation. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to implement it.

Recommendation: The FEMA Administrator should ensure that the GMM program management office fully tests all of its security controls for the system. (Recommendation 8)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Status: Open

Comments: DHS concurred with this recommendation. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to implement it.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Labor should direct its subagencies, other than ETA, to design and implement a process to manage and administer grantees' compliance with the Stevens Amendment, including determining to what extent to provide guidance to grantees on calculations. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Labor
Status: Open

Comments: In responding to the report, DOL stated that it concurs with the recommendation. DOL's subagency, OSHA, provided written comments and stated that it generally agreed with GAO's recommendation. On March 3, 2020, DOL staff said the agency will provide an update to its response to this recommendation, along with responses to open recommendations from other GAO reports, in several months.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Education should design and implement a process to manage and administer grantees' compliance with the Stevens Amendment, including determining to what extent to provide guidance to grantees on calculations. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open

Comments: In a subsequent response to the report, Education stated that it concurred with GAO's recommendation and is considering enhancing its current approach to overseeing compliance with the Stevens Amendment through post-award monitoring activities. On March 9, 2020, an Education Department Official stated that the planned date that work is due to be completed by the applicable program office is 9/30/2020. According to the official, the work will promote consistency across applicable grant programs and enhance their monitoring efforts. The official further stated that Education will develop general monitoring guidance to further check on compliance with the Stevens Amendment for implementation across Education's grantmaking Principal Offices. As a part of monitoring, program offices will be expected to review the Stevens Amendment statutory requirements with grantees and plans to reiterate that grantees are required to disclose for their grant project the percent of the costs financed with federal funds, the federal dollar amount, and the percentage and dollar amount financed by nongovernmental funds when issuing statements, press releases, bid solicitations, and other documents describing their grant project. Education also plans to remind grantees that they must document how the dollar amounts and percentages were calculated in the disclosures and maintain this documentation with their grant file. We will update the action taken in response to this recommendation when further action is confirmed.

Recommendation: The SBA Administrator should establish a process that ensures documentation of states' compliance with the total match requirement before grant closeout. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Small Business Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: SBA generally agreed with GAO's findings and concurred with our recommendations. In response to our draft report, agency officials said SBA will establish a process that ensures documentation of state recipients' compliance with the total match requirement before grant closeout. In September 2019, officials told us this process will include assigning SBA program office responsibilities for ensuring recipient compliance related to the cost match. In March 2020, SBA officials said they were still working on implementing changes to address our recommendation. GAO will continue to monitor the agency's implementation of this process.

Recommendation: The SBA Administrator should develop a process to determine states' compliance with the cash match requirement. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Small Business Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: SBA generally agreed with our findings and concurred with our recommendations. In response to our draft report, agency officials said they would develop a process to determine state's compliance with the cash match requirement. In September 2019, officials told us the process will apply to both grants specialists and program officers, and ensure the cost match is appropriately applied. In March 2020, SBA officials said they were still working on implementing changes to address our recommendation. GAO will continue to monitor the agency's implementation of this process.

Recommendation: The Director of OMB, working with CFOC, should (1) collect data metrics regularly on the Career Roadmap Builder online tool and Grants Training 101 to determine how widely the resources are being used, and (2) obtain periodic feedback from federal agencies on the usefulness of these tools and any needed improvements. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: OMB staff provided us with oral comments stating that the agency partially concurred with our recommendations. For our second recommendation, OMB agreed that user feedback data regarding the Career Roadmap Builder and Grants Training 101 is useful. However, OMB stated that while it will continue to collect data on the number of users, it believes that federal agencies should be responsible for collecting specific, detailed user data if they are using those resources. We continue to believe that OMB and CFOC would benefit from collecting specific, detailed user data on these tools, which they devoted time and multiple resources to developing. Collecting detailed data metrics that go beyond the number of users can help OMB and CFOC to better evaluate the effectiveness of these grants training tools. Additionally, OMB stated the agency is committed to working with CFOC to review the Grants Training 101 module to determine how useful it is and if any improvements or adjustments are needed. In May 2019, OMB staff said that no action had been taken to date in response to this recommendation. In January 2020, OMB responded in writing to this recommendation stating that it was continuing to collect data on usage for both training tools on the CFO.gov site. OMB specified, however, that the usage data was for the number of visitors on the two sites and on users by agency. OMB went on to say that each agency is responsible for the professional development of its own workforce, and that Federal agencies can, at their discretion, collect user data if the Roadmap and Grant Training 101 are part of their official training program. In addition, OMB stated it had made the Grants Training 101 available publicly for federal and non-federal personnel on CFO.Gov, and that collecting specific user data is not considered by them to be beneficial to demonstrate the usefulness of the materials. Based on this response, we will continue to inquire as to the availability and use of metrics and effectiveness measures for the Career Roadmap and the Grants Training 101 modules.

Recommendation: The Secretary of HHS should establish a process to monitor and evaluate HHS's grants training at the central office level. This process should include (1) a method for identifying all employees working on grants across the agency, and (2) oversight procedures to evaluate the sufficiency of sub-agencies' grants training efforts including the incorporation of leading practices related to assessing competencies, training approaches, accountability, and training results. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Status: Open

Comments: HHS concurred with our findings and recommendation. In its comment letter, HHS stated that its Office of Grants Policy, Oversight, and Evaluation, within the Office of Grants and Acquisition Policy and Accountability, Division of Grants, in conjunction with the HHS ReInvent Grants Initiative would be developing and implementing a department-wide financial assistance training and certification program to improve the functional effectiveness of the financial assistance management workforce in the areas of internal controls and risk mitigation. The program is designed to support the professional development of the HHS grants management workforce through both instructor-led and online courses. HHS' ReInvent Grants Management (RGM) staff and GAO held a conference call on November 30th, 2018 to discuss how RGM intended to address the recommendation in GAO-18-491 by developing a generalized framework for the Grants Management Training and Certification (GMTC) program for HHS. An HHS official reported that at its December 2019 quarterly meeting, the HHS Division of Workforce Development (DWD) reported they had in the past quarter: briefed the HHS Executive Committee on Grants Administration Policy (ECGAP) on the DWD mission and goals for training the grants workforce; developed briefing documents and presentations based on a RGM developed framework to develop competencies and outline curriculum of the GMTC program; continued to review and refine the program framework to incorporate DWD mission and goals; drafted the initial policy to further inform the structure and procedures of the GMTC program (e.g. certification levels, required coursework, career development requirements), which should be issued by HHS Office of Grants within Federal Fiscal Year 2020; and collaborated with the HHS Grants Closeout Business Process Reengineering Team to discuss current grants closeout status and how DWD can support grant staff and grant recipient closeout training efforts. Given the ongoing nature of HHS efforts, GAO will continue to monitor progress on a quarterly basis.

Recommendation: To improve CNCS's efforts to move toward a risk-based process for monitoring grants and to improve its capacity for monitoring grantee compliance, the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service should ensure that CNCS completes its efforts to benchmark its assessment criteria and scoring process to further develop a risk-based approach to grant monitoring and that information from this effort is used to (a) score the indicators so that the riskiest grants get the highest scores; (b) revise the assessment indicators to meaningfully cover all identifiable risks, including fraud and improper payments; and (c) document decisions on how indicators are selected and weighted.

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: CNCS has been working since September 2018 to review and update its risk assessment process. The CNCS Office of Research and Evaluation has developed a methodology to determine the appropriate score and weight for the assessment indicators. It plans to fully implement the new risk assessment process in fiscal year 2020. To close this recommendation, CNCS will need to show documentation for how it selected and weighted revised indicators to cover identifiable risks, and how the revised scoring system identifies the riskiest grants.

Recommendation: To improve CNCS's efforts to move toward a risk-based process for monitoring grants and to improve its capacity for monitoring grantee compliance, the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service should review monitoring protocols, including the level of information collected for oversight of subrecipients' activities such as criminal history checks, and enhance protocols, as appropriate.

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: As of July 2019, CNCS stated that revisions to the agency-wide risk assessment instrument include indicators to address prime grantee monitoring and oversight of subrecipients. CNCS established a new Office of Monitoring in 2019, which will be responsible for reviewing and improving monitoring protocols, including those related to subrecipient activities. Enhanced monitoring protocols will be implemented as part of its fiscal year 2020 monitoring plan. To help close this recommendation, CNCS will need to show how it has expanded information it collects pertaining to subrecipients, and how its monitoring efforts reflect this.

Recommendation: To improve CNCS's efforts to move toward a risk-based process for monitoring grants and to improve its capacity for monitoring grantee compliance, the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service should establish activities to systematically evaluate grant monitoring results.

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: In July 2019, CNCS reported that the new Office of Monitoring supports the agency's May 2018 Transformation and Sustainability Plan goals related to monitoring and evaluating results. This office is developing a monitoring strategy to align with the agency's IT system improvements, and will allow for reporting and data to support a systematic evaluation of grant monitoring results. To help close this recommendation, CNCS will need to show how the agency has used outcomes and findings from its grant monitoring activities to help guide improvements to these activities.

Recommendation: To improve CNCS's efforts to move toward a risk-based process for monitoring grants and to improve its capacity for monitoring grantee compliance, the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service should, as part of CNCS's efforts to develop an employee development program, update critical competencies for grant monitoring, and establish a training planning process linked with agency goals and these competencies.

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: As of July 2019, CNCS is in the process of realigning its grant management and monitoring functions. The agency plans to document critical competencies for grant management and monitoring roles and establish a training program to strengthen its grant monitoring performance. By December 2019, CNCS plans to implement a comprehensive orientation curriculum and a more effective onboarding procedure, updated staff support training materials, among other changes to its training efforts. To close this recommendation, CNCS will need to determine which competencies are critical for grant monitoring, and show how the competencies are linked with the agency's training planning processes and agency goals.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct the Office of Grants and Debarment (OGD) and program and regional offices, as appropriate, as part of EPA's ongoing streamlining initiatives and the development of a grantee portal, to incorporate expanded search capability features, such as keyword searches, into its proposed web-based portal for collecting and accessing performance reports to improve their accessibility.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In correspondence to GAO, EPA reiterated its agreement with this recommendation. EPA also stated that its vision for grants management includes having grant recipients submit performance reports and other information to the agency through a web-based portal. The portal would incorporate capabilities such as key word searches to allow for easier access to performance report information. EPA expected this recommendation to be addressed by its new grants management system (GrantsSolutions). However, in January 2020, EPA officials told us that EPA had ceased its migration to GrantSolutions after determining the long-term costs were unsustainable and that the system lacked fundamental functionality necessary for core grant operations and to maintain appropriate internal controls. EPA is now migrating towards a modernized grants administration and management cloud solution. EPA expects this recommendation to be addressed when the new grants management system is fully implemented. EPA anticipates deployment of the new cloud solution in December 2020.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct OGD and program and regional offices, as appropriate, as part of EPA's ongoing streamlining initiatives and the development of a grantee portal, once EPA's new performance system is in place, to ensure that the Office of Water adopts software tools, as appropriate, to electronically transfer relevant data on program results from program-specific databases to EPA's national performance system.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In correspondence to GAO, EPA reiterated its general agreement with this recommendation and stated that it will apply it, where appropriate and cost effective, to program-specific databases, not only the Office of Water databases. EPA noted that not all data from program-specific databases may be appropriate for direct electronic transfer to the national performance system; some individual grant data may need to be analyzed before being rolled up into national data. As of December 2018, EPA officials said that continued work on this recommendation is dependent upon EPA's Office of the Chief Financial Officer's deployment of a new performance tracking system and individual program funds for developing systems that interact with it. As of April 2020, GAO is following up with EPA on the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct OGD and program and regional offices, as appropriate, as part of EPA's ongoing streamlining initiatives and the development of a grantee portal, to clarify the factors project officers should consider when determining whether performance reports are consistent with EPA's environmental results directive.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In correspondence to GAO, EPA reiterated its agreement with this recommendation and stated that it will make conforming changes to the implementation guidance for the Environmental Results Order (directive). In December 2018, EPA stated that its existing environmental results directive may be superseded or incorporated into a different policy as part of the agency's migration to a new grants management system (GrantsSolutions). EPA stated that it would incorporate the recommendation into its new policy. However, in January 2020, EPA officials told us that EPA had ceased its migration to GrantSolutions after determining the long-term costs were unsustainable and that the system lacked fundamental functionality necessary for core grant operations and to maintain appropriate internal controls. EPA is now migrating towards a modernized grants administration and management cloud solution. EPA expects this recommendation to be addressed when the new grants management system is fully implemented. EPA anticipates deployment of the new cloud solution in December 2020.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct OGD and program and regional offices, as appropriate, as part of EPA's ongoing streamlining initiatives and the development of a grantee portal, to expand aspects of EPA's policy for certain categorical grants, specifically, the call for an explicit reference to the planned results in grantees' work plans and their projected time frames for completion, to all grants.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In correspondence to GAO, EPA reiterated its agreement with this recommendation and stated that it will make conforming changes to existing policy. In December 2018, EPA stated that its existing policies may be superseded or incorporated into different policies as part of the agency's migration to a new grants management system (GrantsSolutions). EPA stated that it would incorporate the recommendation into its new policy. However, in January 2020, EPA officials told us that EPA had ceased its migration to GrantSolutions after determining the long-term costs were unsustainable and that the system lacked fundamental functionality necessary for core grant operations and to maintain appropriate internal controls. EPA is now migrating towards a modernized grants administration and management cloud solution. EPA expects this recommendation to be addressed when the new grants management system is fully implemented. EPA anticipates deployment of the new cloud solution in December 2020.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct OGD and program and regional offices, as appropriate, as part of EPA's ongoing streamlining initiatives and the development of a grantee portal, to incorporate built-in data quality controls for performance reports into the planned web-based portal based on EPA's environmental results directive.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In correspondence to GAO, EPA reiterated its general agreement with this recommendation. However, EPA emphasized that identifying and deploying appropriate data quality controls is a long-term effort subject to budgetary considerations, completion of its new grants management system, and extensive collaboration with internal and external stakeholders. EPA officials said that the agency expected this recommendation to be addressed by its new grants management system (GrantsSolutions). However, in January 2020, EPA officials told us that EPA had ceased its migration to GrantSolutions after determining the long-term costs were unsustainable and that the system lacked fundamental functionality necessary for core grant operations and to maintain appropriate internal controls. EPA is now migrating towards a modernized grants administration and management cloud solution. EPA expects this recommendation to be addressed when the new grants management system is fully implemented. EPA anticipates deployment of the new cloud solution in December 2020.