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Open Recommendations (155 total)

DATA Act: Progress Made in Initial Implementation but Challenges Must be Addressed as Efforts Proceed

GAO-15-752T
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget
Priority Rec.
To ensure that federal program spending data are provided to the public in a transparent, useful, and timely manner, the Director of OMB should accelerate efforts to determine how best to merge DATA Act purposes and requirements with the GPRAMA requirement to produce a federal program inventory.
Open
OMB has taken steps to implement this recommendation, including issuing a plan in November 2021 for fully implementing an inventory of all federal programs. In March 2022, OMB told us that establishing a complete federal program inventory will require a whole-of-government effort, similar in cost and scope to the government-wide implementation of the DATA Act. To fully address this recommendation, OMB needs to clearly communicate how its plan for implementing a federal program inventory will help achieve the purpose identified in the DATA Act of linking federal contract, loan, and grant spending information to federal programs. As of December 2022, OMB has not done this. Taking such actions will enable taxpayers and policy makers to track federal spending more effectively.

DATA Act: OMB, Treasury, and Agencies Need to Improve Completeness and Accuracy of Spending Data and Disclose Limitations

GAO-18-138
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB should continue to provide ongoing technical assistance that significantly contributes to agencies making their own determinations about their DATA Act reporting requirements and monitor agency submissions. (Recommendation 1)
Open
OMB staff stated the assistance it has previously provided to help agencies make their own reporting determinations fulfills the recommendation's intent. In March 2022, OMB told us that it provides ad-hoc technical assistance to agencies on their DATA Act reporting, including when it notices gaps in quarterly updates. As a result, OMB does not plan to take further action on this recommendation. In December 2022, OMB reiterated that it considers this recommendation closed because they have met the intent of the recommendation. However, because we have identified instances where agencies have not submitted these data and Treasury forwards a list of non-compliant agencies to OMB on a quarterly basis as part of its ongoing DATA Act monitoring efforts, we continue to believe that OMB needs to follow up with agencies that are not submitting data to determine why they are not reporting. It also needs to update its list of agencies required to report.

2017 Disaster Relief Oversight: Strategy Needed to Ensure Agencies’ Internal Control Plans Provide Sufficient Information

GAO-19-479
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget
Priority Rec.
The Director of OMB, after consulting with key stakeholders (e.g., the Chief Financial Officers Council), should develop a strategy for ensuring that agencies communicate sufficient and timely internal control plans for effective oversight of disaster relief funds. (Recommendation 1)
Open
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) disagreed with our recommendation. In its agency comments, OMB staff stated that OMB did not believe the sufficiency or timeliness of control plans present material issues that warranted OMB action. While OMB acknowledged that almost all agency control plans were submitted after the statutory deadline, OMB staff stated that this delay in itself neither indicated the absence of controls nor the effectiveness of those controls. Further, OMB staff stated that it is agency management and not OMB that has responsibility for ensuring compliance with applicable laws and regulations. While agencies were responsible for submitting their internal control plans, federal law placed the responsibility of establishing the criteria for the internal control plans with OMB. Therefore, we believe that our recommendation is warranted. As of March 2024, OMB did not indicate any change in its position. We will continue to monitor OMB's actions to address this recommendation.

Government Performance Management: Actions Needed to Improve Transparency of Cross-Agency Priority Goals

GAO-23-106354
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB should develop guidance and procedures to ensure that CAP goals are updated or revised and made publicly available concurrently with the submission of the budget of the United States Government, made in the first full fiscal year following any year in which the term of the President commences. (Recommendation 1)
Open
In July 2023, OMB stated that it does not plan to take further action on this recommendation, and considers the recommendation to be closed. We consider this recommendation to be valid for the reasons stated in our report, and we will continue to monitor its implementation status.

Justice40: Use of Leading Practices Would Strengthen Efforts to Guide Environmental Justice Initiative

GAO-24-105869
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB, jointly with the Chair of CEQ and the Assistant to the President and National Climate Advisor of CPO, should work with the Interagency Council to identify and leverage resources available through the Interagency Council to update and develop new guidance and tools for implementing the Justice40 Initiative. (Recommendation 8)
Open
In written comments reproduced in our report, CEQ stated that it anticipates taking steps in the coming months to implement our recommendations on leading practices. We will update the status of this recommendation when we receive additional information from the agencies.

Managing For Results: Agencies Should More Fully Develop Priority Goals under the GPRA Modernization Act

GAO-13-174
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget When such revisions are made, the Director of OMB should work with the Performance Improvement Council to test and implement these provisions.
Open
As of July 2023, OMB has not taken action to address this recommendation. According to information provided by OMB and PIC staff in June 2015, although OMB revised its guidance as we recommended, it did not work with the PIC to test implementation of these provisions. Instead, they told us that both PIC and OMB staff ensure agencies are implementing these provisions of their guidance when reviewing agency priority goal (APG) quarterly update submissions. However, our periodic analyses of agencies' APG updates since that time, including updates from June 2022, has continued to find that implementation of these provisions is mixed. In July 2023, we reached out to OMB about any additional actions. We will update the status of this recommendation once we hear from OMB.

2014 Sequestration: Opportunities Exist to Improve Transparency of Progress Toward Deficit Reduction Goals

GAO-16-263
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget To promote further transparency in measuring the federal government's progress against deficit reduction targets required under current law, the Director of the Office of Management of Budget should identify and publicly report the total amount of actual reductions in budget authority government-wide each year as a result of sequestration or the reduction of discretionary spending limits under BBEDCA.
Open
In July 2023, OMB staff maintained their position of disagreement with this recommendation as summarized in our April 2016 report.

Federal Research Grants: OMB Should Take Steps to Establish the Research Policy Board

GAO-21-232R
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB should establish the Research Policy Board as mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act and report to Congress on the Board's activities. (Recommendation 1)
Open
As of March 2024, OMB has not established the research policy board and has not provided any further actions on this recommendation. We will continue to monitor this recommendation and provide updates, as appropriate.

Federal Real Property: Agencies Need New Benchmarks to Measure and Shed Underutilized Space

GAO-24-107006
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB should ensure that the Deputy Director of OMB, as Chair of the Federal Real Property Council, leads the development and use of benchmarks for measuring building utilization that account for greater levels of telework. (Recommendation 1)
Open
As of March 2024, in response to GAO's October 2023 recommendation, OMB confirmed that as the Chair of the Federal Real Property Council they had established a working group to begin developing benchmarks.

Single Audits: Improving Federal Audit Clearinghouse Information and Usability Could Strengthen Federal Award Oversight

GAO-24-106173
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB should work with the Administrator of GSA to develop a method for determining federal award recipients that did not submit a single audit report but should have based on their combined funds received from multiple federal agencies and communicate this method to federal awarding agencies. (Recommendation 7)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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