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Open Recommendations (65 total)

Federal Retirement: OPM Actions Needed to Improve Application Processing Times

GAO-19-217
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Associate Director of OPM's Retirement Services should develop and implement policies and procedures for assessing strategies intended to improve processing times, including collecting and improving data needed to support those strategies, such as collecting better productivity data or staffing data and linking them to processing outcomes. (Recommendation 4)
Open
OPM partially concurred with the recommendation. In August 2022, OPM provided a list of strategies it uses to improve claim processing times, such as using overtime and special project teams. OPM also provided documentation of a new weekly production report and the start of a new peer review procedure. These efforts may improve processing outcomes. However, to fully implement this recommendation, OPM needs to develop both policies to guide, and plans to evaluate, its strategies and newly implemented procedures or reports. In October 2023, we requested additional information from OPM. We will update the status of this recommendation after reviewing OPM's response.

Personnel Practices: OPM Can Improve Oversight and Transparency of Agencies' Hiring of Political Appointees into Career Federal Positions

GAO-23-105066
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Director of OPM should complete the remaining steps needed to ensure that, consistent with proactive disclosure requirements, reports to Congress on agency requests to appoint current or recent political appointees to career positions are included on OPM's website with other frequently requested records. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Personnel Mobility Program: Improved Guidance Could Help Federal Agencies Address Skills Gaps and Maximize Other Benefits

GAO-22-104414
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Director of OPM should establish a process and update its guidance to obtain complete and accurate data about the number of non-federal mobility program participants on detail to federal agencies. (Recommendation 2)
Open
OPM disagreed with this recommendation, in part because they said it would create a reporting burden for agencies. However, this data could be used to determine where there are opportunities for agencies to more fully leverage the mobility program to address critical skills and occupation gaps, which has been a government-wide high risk area since 2001. Therefore, we continue to believe that establishing a process and updating its guidance to collect these data are essential for informing the customer service and assistance OPM provides to federal agencies and encourage OPM to explore reasonable steps to do so. As of September 2023, there has been no status change. We will continue to monitor OPM's progress.

Federal Software Licenses: Agencies Need to Take Action to Achieve Additional Savings

GAO-24-105717
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Director of OPM should ensure that the agency compares the inventories of software licenses that are currently in use with information on purchased licenses to identify opportunities to reduce costs and better inform investment decision making for its widely used licenses on a regular basis. At a minimum, it should consistently implement its procedures for comparing the inventories of licenses in use to purchase records. (Recommendation 14)
Open
The Office of Personnel Management concurred with this recommendation. As of March 2024, the agency stated that OPM's efforts to compare the inventory of current software licenses with information on purchased licenses are in progress. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to fully implement this recommendation.

Federal Software Licenses: Better Management Needed to Achieve Significant Savings Government-Wide

GAO-14-413
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management To ensure the effective management of software licenses, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management should provide software license management training to appropriate agency personnel addressing contract terms and conditions, negotiations, laws and regulations, acquisition, security planning, and configuration management.
Open
The Office of Personnel Management concurred with our recommendations and noted actions the agency plans to take. Agency officials noted that an initial list of required and optional software management training will be in the software asset management procedures. However, as of January 2024, the agency had not provided supporting evidence to demonstrate that it had addressed this recommendation. In July 2016, the MEGABYTE Act of 2016 was enacted, which codified this recommendation for all executive agencies (Pub. L. No. 114-210, 130 Stat. 824). We will continue to monitor its progress in implementing this recommendation.

Privacy: Dedicated Leadership Can Improve Programs and Address Challenges

GAO-22-105065
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Director of OPM should fully develop and document a privacy continuous monitoring strategy. (Recommendation 57)
Open
The Office of Personnel Management partially concurred with this recommendation, stating that it will further evaluate its approach to privacy continuous monitoring and review the need for more comprehensive documentation. As of January 2024, OPM stated that its privacy and security programs work collaboratively to implement revision 5 of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Special Publication 800-53, revision 5. OPM added that it plans to further evaluate the agency's approach to continuous monitoring and documentation by Q4 of fiscal year 2024 or Q1 of fiscal year 2025. Once the agency states that it has taken action, we plan to verify whether implementation has occurred.

Federal Retirement: OPM Actions Needed to Improve Application Processing Times

GAO-19-217
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Associate Director of OPM's Retirement Services should examine its process for assessing its assistance to agencies on retirement applications. For example, OPM could incorporate into its assessment process more agency feedback or documentation of assessment results, which could improve its partnership with agencies to strengthen the assistance provided. (Recommendation 5)
Open
OPM concurred with the recommendation. In August 2022, OPM provided documentation on various ways it communicates with agencies about retirement application errors. It also provided an analysis of the most common errors. This analysis summarized annual results but did not assess OPM's assistance to agencies. To fully implement this recommendation, OPM needs to evaluate how well it assists agencies and use this feedback to improve its agency partnerships and the assistance provided. In October 2023, we requested additional information from OPM. We will update the status of this recommendation after reviewing OPM's response.

Personnel Practices: OPM Can Improve Oversight and Transparency of Agencies' Hiring of Political Appointees into Career Federal Positions

GAO-23-105066
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Director of OPM should work with agencies to collect and disseminate information about the scope of its pre-appointment review authority, including information that identifies those agencies and positions that are not subject to OPM's authority. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Information Technology: OPM Needs to Adopt Key Practices in Modernizing Legacy Financial System

GAO-22-104206
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Director of OPM should direct the CFO to ensure that the FFS-R project conducts a comprehensive M3 risk assessment and defines and meets exit criteria for the Migration phase Release 1 and Release 2 tollgates before proceeding to the next phase of the modernization. (Recommendation 1)
Open
The agency partially agreed with this recommendation and at the time of our report stated that it did not believe that a risk assessment would be a prudent use of resources. In April 2023, OPM provided updates on its efforts to conduct M3 Risk assessments and define and meet exit criteria for the FFS-R Migration Phase Releases 1 and 2. Specifically, OPM noted that an M3 risk assessment was not conducted for Release 1. In addition, OPM provided documentation such as their product readiness review showing defined exit criteria that has been met for its Release 1 tollgate review. However, officials also noted that they are in the planning phase for Release 2 and could not provide an update regarding this recommendation for that release. We will continue to monitor OPM's actions to address this recommendation.

Federal Hiring: USA Staffing System Supports Hiring Needs, but Actions Are Needed to Strengthen Training and Program Management

GAO-24-105738
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Director of OPM should ensure the Associate Director of OPM's Human Resources Solutions promotes the quality of USA Staffing IAA data by documenting roles and responsibilities of key personnel responsible for IAA data management in USA Staffing manual records. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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