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Open Recommendations (65 total)

Information Technology: Agencies Need to Improve Their Application Inventories to Achieve Additional Savings

GAO-16-511
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management To improve federal agencies' efforts to rationalize their portfolio of applications, the heads of the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, the Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs; and heads of the Environmental Protection Agency; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; National Science Foundation; Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Office of Personnel Management; Small Business Administration; Social Security Administration; and U.S. Agency for International Development should direct their Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and other responsible officials to improve their inventories by taking steps to fully address the practices we identified as being partially met or not met.
Open – Partially Addressed
We reported that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) partially met the software application inventory practice to regularly update the inventory with quality controls to ensure reliability. Specifically, although the agency described its process for updating the inventory, it did not provide evidence of actual updates to the inventory. In addition, the agency stated that it relies on manual reviews of the data in the application to ensure that it is complete and current. In January 2023, the agency stated, among other things, that it had implemented a new software asset management policy. The policy, issued in April 2022, specifically identifies that software assets include applications. It also describes steps to regularly review and update the software inventory. We requested evidence of updates to the inventory using the policy. In response, in February 2024, OPM stated that it was in the process of implementing two applications for automated software application discovery. They stated that the applications were expected to be fully implemented by April 2024 and software management processes including inventory quality controls would be applied to the automated software inventory data. We will continue to follow up with OPM as it implements the automated software application discovery tools and uses automated tools to ensure the quality of its application inventory.

Information Technology: Agencies Need to Fully Implement Key Workforce Planning Activities

GAO-20-129
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management
Priority Rec.
The Director of the Office of Personnel Management should ensure that the agency fully implements each of the eight key IT workforce planning activities it did not fully implement. (Recommendation 15)
Open – Partially Addressed
OPM agreed with this recommendation. As of February 2023, OPM had implemented six of the eight recommended IT workforce planning activities-developing competency and staffing requirements; assessing gaps in competencies and staffing; developing strategies and plans to address gaps in competencies and staffing; implementing activities that address gaps; monitoring progress in addressing gaps; and reporting to agency leadership on progress in addressing gaps. In March 2024, OPM stated that it expects to finalize a workforce plan by the end of fiscal year 2024, and assess competency needs by the end of fiscal year 2025. Completing these activities would provide OPM greater assurance that it has the IT staff with the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to support its mission and goals.

Federal Human Resources Data: OPM Should Improve the Availability and Reliability of Payroll Data to Support Accountability and Workforce Analytics

GAO-17-127
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management
Priority Rec.
To integrate the payroll data into the larger suite of EHRI databases, the Director of OPM should develop a schedule for executing these plans.
Open – Partially Addressed
OPM concurred with our recommendation. As of March 2023, OPM has developed a plan to functionally integrate payroll with other EHRI databases but has not developed a schedule for making the data more widely available. To fully implement this recommendation, OPM needs to develop a schedule for improving payroll data availability.

Federal Human Resources Data: OPM Should Improve the Availability and Reliability of Payroll Data to Support Accountability and Workforce Analytics

GAO-17-127
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management
Priority Rec.
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.
Open – Partially Addressed
OPM concurred with our recommendation. In March 2022, OPM officials said they have not updated control activities for payroll data to include transactional edit checks that draw from other EHRI databases. However, they said they have begun to implement new control activities, including nearly 250 new validation edits for EHRI payroll data and provided supporting documentation for the new validation edits. In March 2024, OPM provided documentation of their plan, which has a goal of developing and implementing such edits in fiscal year 2025. To fully implement this recommendation, OPM needs to finish updating control activities, including evaluating opportunities to leverage other EHRI datasets to improve integration and data quality.

Federal Pay: Opportunities Exist to Enhance Strategic Use of Special Payments

GAO-18-91
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Director of OPM should establish documented procedures to assess special payment authority requests requiring OPM approval and periodically review approval procedures to consider ways to streamline them. (Recommendation 3)
Open – Partially Addressed
OPM concurred with the recommendation and, in December 2018, provided documented procedures for reviewing agency requests to waive the normal payment limitations on recruitment, relocation, and retention incentives; and for reviewing agency requests for special rates and critical position pay. However, the procedures generally restated the types of information that agencies must submit and did not provide criteria to assess the information supporting requests. We requested additional documentation and received updates from OPM through December 2022. In January 2023, OPM provided updated procedure documents which demonstrated progress in implementing the recommendation, as the they included questions to ask and steps to assess the sufficiency of information agencies submit with the requests. For example, the procedures for special pay rate requests included a question to guide an assessment of how various measures of pay rates for comparable jobs in non-federal salary data compare to the proposed special rate. Furthermore, the guidance on assessing agency requests to waive the normal payment limitations on recruitment and relocation incentives provided guidance to assess the success of recent efforts to recruit candidates using indicators such as offer acceptance rates, proportion of positions filled, and the length of time required to fill similar positions. The procedures documents also demonstrated progress in implementing the recommendation by referring to OPM plans, beginning in January 2024, to conduct annual reviews of the procedures to identify possible improvements, including consideration of ways to streamline the procedures. However, the format of the documents and lack of specifics on the annual reviews made the procedures appear to be in a draft or interim status. In June 2023, we requested that OPM provide documentation that the procedures are working management directives that have been appropriately internally communicated, including consideration of the audience, nature and purpose of the information, and accessibility of the information when needed to guide decision-making for assessments of agency special payment authority requests, as well as responsibilities and controls in place to prompt and conduct annual reviews of the procedures to potentially streamline them. We will update the status of this recommendation when we complete review of any additional documents OPM provides.

Senior Executive Service: Opportunities for Selected Agencies to Improve Their Career Reassignment Processes

GAO-20-559
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management should use OPM's oversight authority to monitor career SES reassignments to ensure that federal agencies meet requirements contained in statute or regulation, and follow OPM's related guidance. In situations where OPM finds that an agency has taken a career SES reassignment action contrary to these requirements, it should use its authority to require the agency to take corrective action, as appropriate. (Recommendation 4)
Open
OPM did not concur with our recommendation. In responding to our report, OPM stated that it relies on federal agencies to comply with provisions governing SES reassignments. OPM further stated that it has chosen not to make reassignments a focus of its enforcement efforts, in light of scarce resources and other mandates OPM is required to meet. OPM reported in its FY 2025 Congressional Budget Justification and Agency Performance Plan that, as of January 2024, it continued to not concur with the recommendation. However, as discussed in the report, we maintain that OPM should use its oversight authority to ensure agencies' reassignments of SES staff are consistent with requirements. We will continue to monitor OPM's progress.

Federal Workforce: Actions Needed to Improve the Transfer of Personnel Security Clearances and Other Vetting Determinations

GAO-24-105669
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management The Director of the Office of Personnel Management should develop and implement supplemental policies to ensure that federal agencies consistently share information with other agencies attempting to grant suitability, fitness, and credentialing reciprocity. (Recommendation 7)
Open
OPM concurred with this recommendation. OPM stated that it will develop and implement policies that promote timely information sharing among agencies by building on Trusted Workforce 2.0 policies that have emphasized information sharing. We will continue to follow-up on the status of this recommendation.

Small Business Contracting: Actions Needed to Demonstrate and Better Review Compliance with Select Requirements for Small Business Advocates

GAO-17-675
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management To address demonstrated noncompliance with section 15(k) of the Small Business Act, as amended, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management should comply with sections 15(k)(2), (k)(8), and (k)(17) or report to Congress on why the agency has not complied, including seeking any statutory flexibilities or exceptions believed appropriate.
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

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 define and document a policy and process for ensuring that the senior agency official for privacy or other designated privacy official is involved in assessing and addressing the hiring, training, and professional development needs of the agency with respect to privacy. (Recommendation 54)
Open
The Office of Personnel Management did not concur with this recommendation, noting that it has processes in place for the senior agency official for privacy's involvement in workforce planning. In particular, the agency described steps it has taken in this area, including developing a memo in 2020 outlining strategic workforce needs for the Office of Privacy and Information Management. However, OPM has not formalized the role of the SAOP in addressing hiring, training, and professional development needs with respect to privacy, helping to insure the privacy program's ability to advocate for the skilled and qualified staff it needs on an ongoing basis. Accordingly, we believe our recommendation continues to be warranted. In January 2024, OPM stated that it will consider formally documenting the SAOP's role in hiring, training, and professional development by the end of fiscal year 2024 as priorities and resources allow. 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
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Personnel Management
Priority Rec.
The Associate Director of OPM's Retirement Services, working in coordination with the Chief Information Officer, should develop, document, and implement a Retirement Services IT modernization plan for initial project phases that is consistent with key aspects of IT project management, such as determining objectives, costs, and time frames for each initial phase. (Recommendation 1)
Open
OPM partially agreed with this recommendation. In March 2022, OPM stated that it was developing a Retirement Services IT modernization plan, which it planned to finalize in June 2022. As of March 2024, OPM has not provided documentation of its IT modernization plan. To fully implement this recommendation, OPM needs to develop, document, and implement a Retirement Services IT modernization plan that is consistent with key aspects of IT project management, such as determining objectives, costs, and time frames. Having such a plan is especially important since OPM anticipates that implementing the plan will be an iterative, multiyear effort.
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