Priority Open Recommendations: Department of the Treasury
Fast Facts
Each year, we make more than 1,000 recommendations to help the federal government save money, address issues on our High Risk List, and significantly improve government operations.
This letter to Treasury outlines 33 open recommendations that it should prioritize. Many of these recommendations focus on long-standing issues with financial reporting and controls. For example, we made 2 recommendations that would improve oversight over billions in COVID-relief funds.
Treasury addressed 7 recommendations we identified as a priority last year.
We regularly update priority recommendations here.
Highlights
What GAO Found
In May 2022, GAO identified 22 priority recommendations for the Department of the Treasury (Treasury). Since then, Treasury has addressed seven of those recommendations by, among other things, designing policies and procedures to monitor recipients' use of Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds and updating USASpending.gov to improve the prominence and accessibility of information about the website's available data and any known limitations. GAO also moved one priority open recommendation to a separate letter for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
In July 2023, GAO identified 19 additional priority recommendations for Treasury, bringing the total number to 33. These recommendations involve the following areas:
- Improving program oversight and controls
- Ensuring cybersecurity and information privacy
- Improving federal financial management
- Protecting workers' retirement savings
- Improving the timeliness of Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund reports
Treasury's continued attention to these issues could lead to significant improvements in government operations.
Why GAO Did This Study
Priority open recommendations are the GAO recommendations that warrant priority attention from heads of key departments or agencies because their implementation could save large amounts of money; improve congressional and/or executive branch decision-making on major issues; eliminate mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or ensure that programs comply with laws and funds are legally spent, among other benefits. Since 2015 GAO has sent letters to selected agencies to highlight the importance of implementing such recommendations.
For more information, contact Michelle Sager at (202) 512-6806 or sagerm@gao.gov.