Recommendation: To support its strategic and open data goals, the Director of OPM should improve the availability of the EHRI payroll data--for example, by preparing the data for analytics, making them available through online tools such as FedScope, and including them among the EHRI data sources on the OPM website and Data.gov.

Agency: Office of Personnel Management
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: OPM agreed with the recommendation. In December 2018, OPM told us it will establish a plan to make payroll data available through analytical tools such as FedScope no later than the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2019. To fully implement the recommendation, OPM will need to improve the availability of payroll data-either from the existing EHRI system or the new employee digital record-by ensuring the data are prepared and made available for analytics research.

Recommendation: To improve internal controls for data quality, the Director of OPM should consistently monitor system-generated error and edit check reports and ensure that timely action is taken to address identified issues.

Agency: Office of Personnel Management
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: OPM agreed with the recommendation. In December 2018, OPM reported that it plans to begin follow-up efforts with agencies and shared service providers on payroll data errors and anomalies and to notify data providers of problems. To fully implement the recommendation, OPM will need to follow up with shared services centers and agencies regarding issues identified with the payroll data they submit to EHRI. These steps will help ensure the quality of historical and current payroll data. They will also ensure that system detected errors are resolved and do not compound over time.

Recommendation: To integrate the payroll data into the larger suite of EHRI databases, the Director of OPM should develop a schedule for executing these plans.

Agency: Office of Personnel Management
Status: Open

Comments: OPM concurred with our recommendation, but has not yet developed a plan for integrating payroll into the larger suite of EHRI databases.

Recommendation: To integrate the payroll data into the larger suite of EHRI databases, the Director of OPM should evaluate existing internal control activities and develop new control activities for EHRI payroll data, such as implementing transactional edit checks that leverage the information in the other EHRI datasets.

Agency: Office of Personnel Management
Status: Open

Comments: While OPM concurred with our recommendation, the agency has not evaluated or implemented, for Payroll data, the control activities and edit checks that are currently used to support the reliability of the other EHRI datasets.

Recommendation: To help ensure that agencies report comparable and reliable data to Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI), the Director of OPM, in coordination with agencies and payroll service providers, should develop guidance for agencies on which activities to enter, or not enter, as paid administrative leave in agency time and attendance systems.

Agency: Office of Personnel Management
Status: Open

Comments: To address agency use of paid administrative leave that may exceed reasonable amounts as well as discrepancies in recording and reporting paid administrative leave, in December 2016, Congress passed the "Administrative Leave Act of 2016." The act mandates new categories of paid leave, including "investigative leave," "notice leave," and "weather and safety leave" and sets limitations on the duration of paid administrative leave as well as the new categories of investigative and notice leave. The Act also requires OPM to establish regulations on (1) when to grant administrative leave and the other new categories of paid leave, and (2) the proper recording and reporting of these types of paid leave. In July 2017, OPM proposed new rules to regulate paid administrative leave, but has not finalized all these rules. In April 2018, OPM issued final regulations for "weather and safety leave" and announced that it would issue separate final regulations for "administrative leave," "investigative leave," and "notice leave" at a later date. In July 2019, OPM officials told us that they have not finalized the remaining regulations due to legal and practical concerns related to employees serving overseas. For example, the proposed rules could conflict with overseas personnel observing local holidays for security, diplomatic, and practical reasons. OPM also announced that it is reconvening its interagency working group for dismissal and closure procedures to update its "DC Dismissal and Closure Procedures" guidance to reflect the new "weather and safety leave" procedures. In addition, in response to our recommendation, in May 2015, OPM issued a fact sheet on administrative leave, which discusses the appropriate use of an agency's administrative leave authority, including a definition of administrative leave as well as applicable government-wide, individual agency, and emergency policies on the use of administrative leave. However, this fact sheet will need to be revised to reflect the newly issued regulations for "weather and safety leave" in addition to the regulations for the other categories of paid leave when they are in effect. Once all regulations are finalized, the proposed rules, along with updated fact sheet guidance, should help agencies and federal employees appropriately use, record, and report administrative leave. We will be contacting OPM to receive an update on the status of this recommendation once all the regulations are finalized and the fact sheet guidance is revised.

Recommendation: To help ensure that agencies report comparable and reliable data to EHRI, the Director of OPM, in coordination with agencies and payroll service providers, should provide updated and specific guidance to payroll service providers on which activities to report, or not report, to the paid administrative leave data element in EHRI.

Agency: Office of Personnel Management
Status: Open

Comments: To address agency use of paid administrative leave that may exceed reasonable amounts as well as discrepancies in recording and reporting paid administrative leave, in December 2016, Congress passed the "Administrative Leave Act of 2016." The act mandates new categories of paid leave, including "investigative leave," "notice leave," and "weather and safety leave" and sets limitations on the duration of paid administrative leave as well as the new categories of investigative and notice leave. The Act also requires OPM to establish regulations on (1) when to grant administrative leave and the other new categories of paid leave, and (2) the proper recording and reporting of these types of paid leave. In July 2017, OPM proposed new rules to regulate paid administrative leave, but has not finalized all these rules. In April 2018, OPM issued final regulations for "weather and safety leave" and announced that it would issue separate final regulations for "administrative leave," "investigative leave," and "notice leave" at a later date. To accompany the final regulations for "weather and safety leave," OPM issued two new data standards for agencies to report Paid Holiday Time Off and Weather and Safety Leave Hours Used that became effective in May 2018. Also, in November 2018, OPM released an update to its "DC Dismissal and Closure Procedures" guidance to reflect the new "weather and safety leave" procedures. Once all regulations are finalized, the proposed rules, along with updated guidance to payroll providers for reporting paid administrative leave and the new leave categories, should help agencies report comparable and reliable data to EHRI. We will be contacting OPM to receive an update on the status of this recommendation once the regulations are finalized and the guidance is revised.

Recommendation: The Commission should direct the appropriate officials to establish and implement written procedures for conducting all physical inventory counts of equipment. These procedures, at a minimum, should outline the processes for (1) planning and executing the physical inventory count and (2) analyzing and documenting the results.

Agency: American Battle Monuments Commission
Status: Open

Comments: During our audit of the American Battle Monuments Commission's (Commission) fiscal year 2011 financial statements, we found that the Commission had not performed independent physical inventory of equipment owned by the Commission at the various cemeteries across the world. We found that although the Commission had a policy to perform biennial physical inventory counts of all equipment over $500, this policy was not adhered to during fiscal year 2011. Further, the policy did not explain how to plan, execute, and analyze the results of an inventory count. As a result, we recommended that the Secretary of the Commission instruct the appropriate officials to establish and implement written procedures for conducting all physical inventory counts of equipment. These procedures, at a minimum, should outline the processes for (1) planning and executing the physical inventory count and (2) analyzing and documenting the results. During our follow-up, the Commission informed us that they plan to implement procedures to address this recommendation but have not dedicated resources to it yet. We will continue to follow-up on this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Commission should direct the appropriate officials to establish a mechanism to monitor implementation of existing Commission policy to perform biennial physical inventory counts of all items of equipment with an obligated balance of $500 or more.

Agency: American Battle Monuments Commission
Status: Open

Comments: During our audit of the American Battle Monuments Commission's (Commission) fiscal year 2011 financial statements, we found that the Commission had not performed independent physical inventory of equipment owned by the Commission at the various cemeteries across the world. We found that although the Commission had a policy to perform biennial physical inventory counts of all equipment over $500, this policy was not adhered to during fiscal year 2011. As a result, we recommended that the Secretary of the Commission direct the appropriate officials to establish a mechanism to monitor implementation of existing Commission policy to perform biennial physical inventory counts of all items of equipment with an obligated balance of $500 or more. During our fiscal year 2012 audit, we found that although the Commission had performed a comparison of the equipment on hand to the data recorded in SharePoint (document management web application to share documents internally), an independent physical inventory was not performed. We determined that the Commission had not established a mechanism for performing an inventory of assets. During our follow-up, the Commission informed us that they plan to implement procedures to address this recommendation but have not dedicated resources to it yet. We will continue to follow-up on this recommendation.