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Open Recommendations (71 total)

Data Center Optimization: Agencies Need to Address Challenges and Improve Progress to Achieve Cost Savings Goal

GAO-17-448
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, HHS, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and VA; the Attorney General of the United States; the Administrators of EPA, GSA, and SBA; the Director of OPM; and the Chairman of NRC should take action to, within existing OMB reporting mechanisms, complete plans describing how the agency will achieve OMB's requirement to implement automated monitoring tools at all agency-owned data centers by the end of fiscal year 2018.
Open
The Department of Commerce (Commerce) agreed with our recommendation and described planned actions to address it. Specifically, the department noted that, as part of its effort to consolidate, define, and establish a plan to deploy an enterprise-wide automated monitoring tool, it had identified two component agencies that would offer a data center infrastructure management tool as a service. The department added that this approach would allow it to monitor and report cost savings and avoidances more efficiently. In November 2019, Commerce reported that it had 73 agency-owned data centers that the department planned to keep open. However, of those 73, only seven had implemented the required advanced monitoring tools. As of January 2020, we have not received a more recent update from the department about how it will meet the Data Center Optimization Initiative requirement to implement monitoring tools at the remaining 66 of its agency-owned data centers. We will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

IT Modernization: Census Bureau Needs Reliable Cost and Schedule Estimates

GAO-24-105979
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should direct the Director of the Census Bureau to ensure that the OCIO incorporates key elements, such as time frames, into its DevSecOps strategy and finalizes it in a timely manner. (Recommendation 4)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

2020 Census: Bureau Needs to Better Leverage Information to Achieve Goals of Reengineered Address Canvassing

GAO-17-622
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce Early in the next decennial cycle, the Secretary of Commerce should direct the Under Secretary of the Economics and Statistics Administration and the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau to plan and execute more flexible, and perhaps smaller, address canvassing test and evaluation activity needed to support key design decisions having significant effect on the cost and quality of the census.
Open
In March 2024, Bureau officials updated us on their planned reliance on machine-learning tools to help improve detection of changes to the address list during the decade. They expect the tools to help provide "rolling" updates that would eliminate the need for manual review of potential additions and changes to the address list, notably reducing staff time preparing the address list for the 2030 Census. Officials had previously noted that as other decennial enhancements are researched and tested later in the decade, they expect the demand for large-scale field testing of address canvassing activity will be lower. In order to fully implement this recommendation, the Bureau will need to demonstrate how its key design decisions for the 2030 Census are less dependent on large, costly, or time-consuming tests, such as of address canvassing.

2020 Census: Office Managers' Perspectives on Recent Operations Would Strengthen Planning for 2030

GAO-21-104071
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce and the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau should develop and document a plan to address our long-standing recommendation that the Bureau develop mechanisms to increase coordination and communication between the partnership program and census office staff. (Recommendation 3)
Open
Commerce agreed with our recommendation. According to Bureau officials in January 2023, the Bureau is currently designing the structure of its field and partnership program for 2030, which they will document in a series of reports, including a communication and coordination plan for partnership and census offices, targeting release in December 2024. In order to implement this recommendation, the Bureau will need to ensure that this plan is credibly documented with milestones, timetables, accountabilities, and resources necessary to identify mechanisms to increase coordination and communication between partnership and census office staff.

Tribal Economic Development: Action is Needed to Better Understand the Extent of Federal Support

GAO-22-105215
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Director of Commerce's Office of Native American Business Development, in coordination with tribes, should establish a plan for periodically publicly reporting the amount of economic development assistance provided by Commerce to tribal entities and using that information to identify opportunities to improve assistance to tribal entities. (Recommendation 3)
Open
The Department of Commerce agreed with this recommendation. When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

2020 CENSUS: Additional Actions Could Strengthen Field Data Collection Efforts

GAO-17-191
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce and Under Secretary for Economic Affairs should direct the Census Bureau to revise and test procedures on how to better leverage enumerator-collected information on the best time or day to conduct interviews, and ensure enumerators are properly trained on these procedures.
Open
Commerce agreed with this recommendation. In January 2018, Bureau officials told us that leveraging enumerator collected information on the best time to conduct an interview would not be a part of questionnaire design's functionality for 2020 and will most likely rely on the system optimizer to determine the best time to contact a household. Bureau officials indicated they may push this recommendation out to 2030. During the 2018 Test, we continued to observe that enumerator notes were not being systematically reviewed by supervisors and managers, such that information such as office hours for apartment managers among other information we reported on was not being used by the operation. In June 2019, the Bureau informed us that it had added functionality to the enumerator device for enumerators to alert their supervisors (CFS) of case notes of "high importance" and was revising training to explain its use. Additionally, in December 2019, the Bureau shared documentation that reiterated the importance of enumerators reviewing prior case notes but clarified that enumerators should not expect their supervisors to regularly review those case notes. However, in April 2020, Bureau officials indicated that it was not likely that the Bureau would revise CFS training to systematically review case notes for the 2020 cycle, and in March 2021 we reported on the Bureau's use of the optimizer to assign and route cases using an algorithm that identifies the best time of day to enumerate. As of March 2024, we await Bureau officials to conclude analysis related to how field data collection will be managed for the 2030 Census, expected by the end of September 2024. To fully implement this recommendation for future fieldwork later in the decade, the Bureau needs to make better use of the information collected by enumerators during interview attempts about when to make additional attempts, such as during the reported working hours of property managers for large multi-unit structures that house a large number of non-respondents and revise CFS training to require that CFS review case notes.

IT Modernization: Census Bureau Needs Reliable Cost and Schedule Estimates

GAO-24-105979
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should direct the Director of the Census Bureau to ensure that the American Community Survey program develops a plan, including time frames, for the steps they intend to take to determine the most appropriate methods to protect respondent privacy in the publicly available data releases. (Recommendation 5)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

2010 Census: Key Efforts to Include Hard-to-Count Populations Went Generally as Planned; Improvements Could Make the Efforts More Effective for Next Census

GAO-11-45
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce To help improve the effectiveness of the Bureau's outreach and enumeration efforts, especially for HTC populations, should they be used again in the 2020 Census, and improve the Bureau's marketing/outreach efforts, the Secretary of Commerce should require the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs as well as the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau to develop mechanisms to increase coordination and communication between the partnership and local census office staff. Possible actions include offering more opportunities for joint training, establishing protocols for coordination, and more effectively leveraging the partnership contact database to better align partnership outreach activities with local needs.
Open
The Department generally agreed with this recommendation. In 2011, the Bureau reported on the agency's assessment of the partnership program. In September 2014, the Bureau's Path to the 2020 Census identified the Partnership Program as one of the best methods for communicating the importance of response and states its intent to map out details about the Partnership Program in early 2016. As of March 2018, Bureau officials said they were developing coordination mechanisms between partnership and Area Census Office staff for the 2020 Census. For example, the Bureau updated a form it had used during the 2010 Census to track partnership outreach activities to help facilitate information sharing within the Bureau and said it plans to make additional updates. In March 2019, the Bureau informed us that it is assigning at least one partnership specialist to each census office manager to help address this recommendation. As we reported in May 2020, the Bureau had not put in place expectations for how Partnership staff should support area census office staff. We also reported that pluralities of area census office managers we surveyed in March 2020 were dissatisfied with the level of clarity of roles and responsibilities of Partnership staff, as well as the level of communication and coordination between Partnership and office staff. As of March 2024, the Bureau is designing the structure of its field and partnership program for 2030, which they will document in a series of reports, including a communication and coordination plan for partnership and census offices, with a target date of December 2024. To fully implement this recommendation, the Bureau will need to take such steps as documenting for partnership specialists and their area census office manager how they are expected to work together and other significant mechanisms that would increase effectiveness of coordination and communication between partnership and local field office staff.

Steel and Aluminum Tariffs: Commerce Should Update Public Guidance to Reflect Changes in the Exclusion Process

GAO-22-104564
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that the Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security creates a policy to regularly review and update the public Section 232 exclusion process guidance. (Recommendation 1)
Open
The Department of Commerce agreed with this recommendation and stated that it will work to conduct an overarching review of existing public guidance regarding the Section 232 Exclusion Process to update current guidance as needed. As of November 2023, Commerce officials stated that they planned to issue guidance in 2024 addressing the issues that GAO has raised. GAO will continue to monitor Commerce's efforts to implement this recommendation.

Privacy: Dedicated Leadership Can Improve Programs and Address Challenges

GAO-22-105065
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce
Priority Rec.
The Secretary of Commerce should ensure that its organization-wide risk management strategy includes key elements, including a determination of privacy risk tolerance. (Recommendation 9)
Open
The Department of Commerce agreed with our recommendation and stated that it planned to develop a formal action plan. As of March 2024, Commerce officials stated that they planned to develop a privacy risk management strategy by the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024 . Once the department states that it has taken action, we plan to verify whether implementation has occurred.
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