Recommendation: The Commissioner of the Social Security Administration should clarify policies and procedures to remind staff that a diagnosis of a substance use disorder is not necessary to conduct a Drug Addiction and Alcoholism evaluation. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Social Security Administration
Status: Open

Comments: SSA agreed with this recommendation. The agency stated that it had revised related policies in February 2020, and had planned to issue guidance and video-on-demand training to further clarify policies and procedures in this area. However, SSA said its efforts to maintain mission critical activities amid the COVID-19 pandemic have delayed further implementation of this recommendation and a specific implementation date could not be provided at this time.

Recommendation: The Commissioner of the Social Security Administration should ensure that staff document their rationale for decisions involving the Drug Addiction and Alcoholism evaluation process. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Social Security Administration
Status: Open

Comments: SSA agreed with this recommendation. The agency said it had planned to issue guidance reinforcing its policy on properly documenting decisions involving the Drug Addiction and Alcoholism evaluation process. However, SSA said its efforts to maintain mission critical activities amid the COVID-19 pandemic have delayed implementation of this recommendation and a specific implementation date could not be provided at this time.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the Bureau of Economic Analysis includes Puerto Rico in its reporting on gross domestic product, as it does for four other U.S. territories. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Commerce
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Commerce agreed with this recommendation. As of August 2018, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) received initial funding for the remainder of FY18 and FY19 to begin producing economic statistics for Puerto Rico. BEA is currently in the process of meeting with the government and other stakeholders and building a work plan, with a kick-off expected in early FY19 and initial outputs anticipated in late FY19. In addition, BEA reported taking steps to develop a work plan to calculate GDP and review the economic and demographic data currently available from the federal government and Puerto Rico. Any short-term efforts to calculate GDP will rely heavily on data currently collected by the Puerto Rico government. Additional efforts beyond FY19 are contingent on resource availability.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Commerce, in cooperation with DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics, should conduct a study on the feasibility of including Puerto Rico in its reporting of the Current Population Survey. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Commerce
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Commerce agreed with this recommendation. In June 2018, the Department noted that in Fall 2016, the Census Bureau and DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that an assessment of the feasibility of expanding the Current Population Survey (CPS) data products to include Puerto Rico would cost approximately $1.5 million over an 18-month period. Commerce understands that BLS, which funds the majority of the CPS, does not have the funds within its budget to conduct a feasibility study. Given these resources constraints, Census and BLS would also not be able to absorb the costs of collecting, analyzing and producing the data in the out years. As of June 2019, Commerce has coordinated with BLS regarding the related feasibility study required per House Report 115-704. We will close this recommendation when the study is begun.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Labor, in cooperation with the Commerce's Census Bureau, should conduct a study on the feasibility of including Puerto Rico in its reporting of the Current Population Survey. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Labor
Status: Open

Comments: DOL noted that in 2016, Census and its Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimated that an assessment of the feasibility of expanding the Current Population Survey (CPS) data products to include Puerto Rico would cost approximately $1.5 million over an 18-month period (as of June 2018). BLS, which funds the majority of the CPS, does not have the funds within its budget to conduct a feasibility study. Given these resources constraints, BLS and Census would also not be able to absorb the costs of collecting, analyzing and producing the data in the out years. In June 2019, BLS reported that it is in contact with the Census Bureau with respect to the related feasibility study required per House Report 115-704. We will close this recommendation when BLS begins this study.

Recommendation: The Assistant Administrator for Water should direct EPA's Office of Water to amend its Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act inspection guidance documents to add questions on strategic workforce planning topics--such as the number of positions needed in the future, skills needed in the future, and any potential gaps in water operator positions. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In June 2020, EPA Office of Water said that it had revised guidance for conducting Sanitary Surveys for drinking water plants, adding questions related to workforce needs to the "utility management" section of the guidance manual (see Sanitary Survey Learner's Guide (https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-08/documents/sanitary_survey_learners_guide_508_8.27.19.pdf), which includes questions on strategic workforce planning topics in section 14.7. As the recommendation applies to wastewater utilities, EPA did not provide an update. In August 2020, EPA officials stated that they plan to incorporate strategic planning questions into its existing guidance documents. According to EPA, it has taken other actions to support the water workforce by announcing a "Water Workforce Initiative," the goal of which is to provide federal leadership and increase public awareness of water sector careers. We will continue to follow-up with EPA Office of Water to determine what actions have been taken in the wastewater area to add questions on workforce issues in inspection guidance.

Recommendation: The Chair of the EEOC should develop a timeline to complete the planned effort to clean Integrated Mission System data for a one-year period and add missing industry code data. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Status: Open

Comments: As part of an effort to overhaul its IMS data system, EEOC has begun developing an Employer Master List that will provide a source of employer information, including industry codes, but EEOC told us that it has not yet completed this effort. It anticipates this system will be more fully developed by spring 2020. It is important for EEOC to collect sufficient information through its Employer Master List and use it to analyze charge data by industry.

Recommendation: The Director of OFCCP should analyze internal process data from closed evaluations to better understand the cause of delays that occur during compliance evaluations and make changes accordingly. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Labor: Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
Status: Open

Comments: In June 2019, OFCCP officials reported that OFCCP's procedures outlined in the Active Case Enforcement Directive (DIR 2011-01) caused delays in case closures, but OFCCP did not indicate that this conclusion resulted from the recommended analysis of internal process data from closed evaluations. OFCCP officials reported that the agency's aged case rate-defined as a case which is open for more than 730 days and has not been referred for further enforcement-has dropped from 27.7 percent in fiscal year 2017 to 20.9 percent in fiscal year 2019. However, it did not report on changes in case outcomes. In September 2019, OFCCP officials told us they continue to look for ways to address delays with effective policies that make the agency more efficient. We maintain that OFCCP should determine the root causes of delays based on data analysis of actual evaluations to demonstrate that its policy changes are accurately targeting the causes of these delays.

Recommendation: The Director of OFCCP should assess the quality of the methods used by OFCCP to incorporate consideration of disparities by industry into its process for selecting contractor establishments for compliance evaluation. It should use the results of this assessment in finalizing its procedures for identifying contractor establishments at greatest risk of noncompliance. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Labor: Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
Status: Open

Comments: In its agency response to our November 2017 report, OFCCP officials reported that the agency was exploring the use of U.S. Census Bureau and administrative data to refine its selection process to focus on industries with a greater likelihood of noncompliance. In January 2019, DOL officials reported that DOL had revised its scheduling methodology to include industries with the highest rates of violations. OFCCP published the scheduling list in March 2019 and its field offices started scheduling cases in May 2019. OFCCP stated it will continue to monitor results from this revised scheduling methodology to determine its effectiveness. It will be important for OFCCP to refine these methods based on its experiences with them. This new process is a step toward focusing efforts on industries at greater risk of potential noncompliance with nondiscrimination or affirmative action requirements. We will consider closing this recommendation when these efforts are complete.

Recommendation: The Director of OFCCP should evaluate the current approach used for identifying entities for compliance review and determine whether modifications are needed to reflect current workplace structures and locations or to ensure that subcontractors are included. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Labor: Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
Status: Open

Comments: In fiscal year 2019, OFCCP evaluated its current approach for identifying subcontractors for review. OFCCP stated that the current approach does not reliably include subcontractors in the pool from which contractors are scheduled because there is no government or public database that captures the complete universe of subcontractors and other important data. In June 2019, OFCCP submitted revisions to its process to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for approval. We will consider closing this recommendation when these efforts are complete.

Recommendation: The Director of OFCCP should evaluate the Functional Affirmative Action Program to assess its usefulness as an effective alternative to an establishment-based program, and determine what improvements, if any, could be made to better encourage contractor participation. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Labor: Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
Status: Open

Comments: OFCCP has taken steps to encourage contractors to use the FAAP program without fully evaluating it as an alternative to the establishment-based program. Evaluating the FAAP could help OFCCP improve its ability to achieve its objectives and may provide broader insight for OFCCP's overall enforcement approach. We will consider closing this recommendation when these efforts are complete.

Recommendation: To ensure that federal contractors are complying with equal employment opportunity requirements, the Secretary of Labor should direct the Director of OFCCP to make changes to the contractor scheduling list development process so that compliance efforts focus on those contractors with the greatest risk of not following equal employment opportunity and affirmative action requirements.

Agency: Department of Labor
Status: Open

Comments: In 2018, in consultation with technical experts, DOL revised its scheduling list methodology to address this recommendation. The agency's new scheduling approach aims to strike an appropriate balance for addressing recidivism and noncompliance. The new scheduling list methodology, deployed in FY 2019, examined closed cases for FY 2014 through 2018 and grouped them by industries using the 2-digit NAICS code. Within each year, OFCCP identified cases that closed with discrimination findings and included a conciliation agreement to make the victims whole. The percentage of cases with discrimination findings over the total number of cases closed for that year was computed for each industry. This process was repeated for each of the five fiscal years and identified Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Wholesale Trade as three industries with the highest rate of discrimination violations. One-third of 3,500 establishments on the fiscal 2019 scheduling list were selected from these three industries; the remainder of the list included establishments from other industries. Field offices began scheduling from this list in May 2019 and continue to do so. OFCCP will evaluate the efficacy of this methodology once all establishments on the list are scheduled and resulting cases are closed. The agency has made significant effort to revise its scheduling list methodology to reflect potential risk of noncompliance. However, the methodology relies on the results of prior scheduling lists that were nonrandom and did not produce a generalize sample of contractors. Consequently, the results of those scheduling lists do not allow OFCCP to draw accurate conclusions about noncompliance risk. While DOL has made considerable efforts to implement this recommendation, the process described does not necessarily identify those contractors with the greatest risk of not following equal employment opportunity and affirmative action requirements.

Recommendation: To ensure that federal contractors are complying with equal employment opportunity requirements, the Secretary of Labor should direct the Director of OFCCP to develop a mechanism to monitor AAPs from covered federal contractors on a regular basis. Such a mechanism could include electronically collecting AAPs and contractor certification of annual updates.

Agency: Department of Labor
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: Since 2018, OFCCP issued Directive 2018-07, AAP Verification Initiative, publicly committing to a comprehensive program to verify that federal contractors are complying with AAP obligations on a yearly basis. The program included development of an online portal whereby contractors would certify on a yearly basis compliance with AAP requirements; inclusion of a criterion in the neutral scheduling methodology increasing the likelihood of compliance reviews for contractors that have not certified compliance with the AAP requirements; compliance checks to verify contractor compliance with AAP requirements; requesting proffer of the AAP by contractors when requesting extensions of time to provide support data in response to a scheduling letter; and development of information technology to collect and facilitate review of AAPs provided by federal contractors. OFCCP senior leadership initiated a public campaign by emphasizing AAP certification as an agency priority in meetings with contractors and other external stakeholders. In addition, OFCCP also changed its criteria for granting extensions of time for the submission of support data in response to a scheduling letter and made it contingent upon timely submission of an AAP, within 30 days of receiving the scheduling letter. OFCCP reflected this change in an FAQ on its website. The Task Order to develop the portal expired on September 30, 2019 without fully completing the project. A new contract was awarded in September 2019 to continue this work and delivery of the completed portal is anticipated in the third quarter of fiscal year 2020. Concurrently, OFCCP anticipates obtaining approval from the Office of Management and Budget to collect annual certifications using this portal. When launched, the portal will allow all contractors to certify annually that they have developed and maintain compliant AAPs for each of their establishments or functional/business units. Those contractors who fail to certify, or who certify that they do not have compliant AAPs for each of their establishments or business/functional units, will be more likely to be scheduled for compliance evaluations. Further, OFCCP anticipates having contractors that are scheduled for compliance evaluations use the portal to submit their AAPs for review. While the agency has made considerable efforts to implement this recommendation, the processes described have not been fully implemented. Once implemented, GAO will close the recommendation.

Recommendation: To help determine whether current efforts are effective or if additional action may be needed, such as development of a workplace violence prevention standard for health care employers, the Secretary of Labor should direct the Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health to develop and implement cost-effective ways to assess the results of the agency's efforts to address workplace violence.

Agency: Department of Labor
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: According to OSHA officials, the agency had a study underway to review OSHA's workplace violence enforcement cases in health care to better understand the obstacles OSHA compliance officers encountered during these investigations and identify factors which led to citations. The study was intended to help compliance officers develop citations in workplace violence cases. In addition, in December 2016, OSHA published a Request for Information on Preventing Workplace Violence in Healthcare and Social Assistance (RFI) to help identify workplace violence prevention requirements that could be effective and economical if a regulation were to be developed. OSHA reported in June 2018 that it is evaluating the information it received in response to the RFI and is gathering information on best practices in certain industries. As of April 2020, OSHA completed its review of the submissions in response to the RFI, is developing regulatory options, and will obtain additional input from potentially affected small businesses. The agency anticipates completing this process by the end of 2020. To fully implement this recommendation, the agency should complete its process of obtaining input on the regulatory options the agency is developing, and finalize its determination on whether regulatory action is needed.

Recommendation: To improve agencies' guidance development, review, evaluation, and dissemination processes for non-significant guidance, we recommend that the Secretaries of USDA, HHS, DOL, and Education should improve the usability of selected component websites to ensure that the public can easily find, access, and comment on online guidance. These improvements could be informed by the web and customer satisfaction metrics that components have collected on their websites. Some examples of changes that could facilitate public access to online guidance include (1) improving website usability by clarifying which links contain guidance; (2) highlighting new or important guidance; and (3) ensuring that posted guidance is current.

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Status: Open

Comments: In comments printed in the April 2015 final report, HHS concurred with the recommendation and stated that it would review current links to guidance documents and explore ways to enhance their visibility and usability. As of June 2020, GAO is working with HHS officials to obtain additional updates and documentation regarding the department's implementation of this recommendation.