GAO cited issues with reporting on emergency relief spending, subaward data, and more. Image: Artem Avetisyan/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe GAO has recommended that OMB and Treasury strengthen requirements for agencies to report spending through usaspending.gov, after finding shortcomings including incomplete data or figures that do not match those reported elsewhere.
In a report ordered by a law requiring the GAO to audit spending under pandemic relief laws, the GAO said that of 152 entities that are identified as “agencies” on government financial statements, 49 had not reported any spending under those laws to usaspending.gov, including 25 that accounted for some $5 billion in outlays for pandemic relief.
Further, data reported by other agencies “did not always agree with publicly available federal agency reports” on pandemic relief spending. That includes Treasury itself, whose fiscal 2022 agency financial report showed higher spending than what it reported to the spending portal, it said.
GAO also said that agency reporting was inconsistent regarding “other transaction agreements,” which are not subject to certain federal acquisition laws and requirements, since “there is not a systematic way to identify OTAs on USAspending.gov.” GAO also cited issues with reporting on emergency relief spending, subaward data, and more.
It said OMB agreed with a recommendation that it, along with Treasury, issue guidance to assure that data USAspending.gov are consistent and comparable across other public sources such as agency budget and annual financial reports. The GAO also recommended that Congress consider requiring that the two agencies decide which entities must report their spending through that portal and requiring that spending on OTAs be reported.
The report follows a recent one from the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee finding that data on spending under several pandemic relief programs suffers from “persistent data gaps and data reliability issues.” Also recently, a review of IG reports on spending data conducted by the IG at the National Science Foundation found common issues of incomplete or inaccurate reporting on the use of other transaction agreements.
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