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Open Recommendations

Defense Budget: Additional Information about Military Personnel Realignments Would Facilitate Congressional Oversight
GAO-24-106979
Sep 11, 2024
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5 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Defense The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) revises the Financial Management Regulation to require the active and reserve components to provide a report to Congress that contains complete information on individual program-level realignments of MILPERS funds. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of the Army The Secretary of the Army should ensure that its active and reserve components implement the revised Financial Management Regulation guidance and report realignments by individual program for MILPERS accounts in their annual budget materials. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of the Navy The Secretary of the Navy should ensure that Navy active and reserve components implement the revised Financial Management Regulation guidance and report realignments by individual program for MILPERS accounts in their annual budget materials. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of the Navy The Secretary of the Navy should ensure that Marine Corps active and reserve components implement the revised Financial Management Regulation guidance and report realignments by individual program for MILPERS accounts in their annual budget materials. (Recommendation 4)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of the Air Force The Secretary of the Air Force should ensure that its active and reserve components implement the revised Financial Management Regulation guidance and report realignments by individual program for MILPERS accounts in their annual budget materials. (Recommendation 5)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Disaster Relief Fund: Lessons Learned from COVID-19 Could Improve FEMA's Estimates
GAO-24-106676
Jul 09, 2024
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency The FEMA Administrator should identify and document lessons learned related to estimating obligations for declared catastrophic disasters based on its experience with COVID-19. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Veterans Affairs: Improvements Needed in Estimating Funding for Potential Future Health Emergencies
GAO-24-106359
Feb 08, 2024
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Veterans Affairs The VA Undersecretary for Health should update VHA's standard operating procedure to require documenting and sharing with internal VHA stakeholders the rationale for key decisions made when developing the EHCPM. This should include documentation of key decisions made that led from the development of the initial EHCPM scenario through the scenario ultimately used to develop the President's budget request for VA. (Recommendation 1)
Open
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) concurred with our recommendation. As of June 2024, the Veterans Health Administration's (VHA) Office of Enrollment and Forecasting is finalizing a standard operating procedure (SOP) for developing Enrollee Health Care Projection Model (EHCPM) scenarios to support budget formulation. The SOP will include an approval memorandum template to provide consistent and standardized information on assumptions to VHA decision makers and will ensure proper documentation of VHA leadership decisions concerning EHCPM assumptions. We will continue to monitor VA's action to ensure the development and implementation of this SOP.
Department of Veterans Affairs The VA Undersecretary for Health should enhance VA's analytical modeling capacity to better enable VHA to prepare estimates of the supplemental funding needed to address catastrophic events, such as pandemics, natural disasters, and terrorist acts. (Recommendation 2)
Open
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) concurred with our recommendation. As of June 2024, the Veterans Health Administration's (VHA) Chief Strategy Office convened an internal Catastrophic Events Modeling workgroup to develop a draft charter to provide clear direction regarding the enhancement of the modeling capacity to prepare funding estimates to meet the needs of veterans in the event of another catastrophic event such as the COVID-19 pandemic. According to VHA officials, this charter is currently under review. This workgroup is also establishing members across VA and will play a key role in developing the organization's response to catastrophic events and determine supplemental funding requirements. We will continue to monitor the actions of this workgroup and asses the charter to determine if it addresses the intent of our recommendation for VA to enhance its analytic modeling capacity to better enable VHA to prepare estimates of supplemental funding needed to address a future catastrophic event.

Federal Spending Transparency: Opportunities to Improve USAspending.gov Data
GAO-24-106214
Nov 07, 2023
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3 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Congress Congress should consider amending the DATA Act to assign Treasury, in coordination with OMB, the responsibilities to periodically assess and determine which agencies must report data to USAspending.gov and to oversee the completeness of reporting by all required agencies. (Matter for Congressional Consideration 1)
Open
As of March 2024, Congress has taken no action on this Matter.
Congress Congress should consider amending the DATA Act to include OTAs in the list of federal awards that agencies must report to USAspending.gov. (Matter for Congressional Consideration 2)
Open
As of March 2024, Congress has taken no action on this Matter.
Office of Management and Budget The Director of OMB, in collaboration with the Secretary of the Treasury, should provide guidance for agencies to ensure that the disaster and emergency budgetary data agencies report to USAspending.gov are consistent and comparable across other public sources, such as agency budget and annual financial reports. (Recommendation 1)
Open
In response to our draft report, OMB stated that it agreed with this recommendation. In March 2024 OMB told us that action is planned for this recommendation but not yet in progress. We will continue to monitor OMB's progress towards implementing this recommendation.
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