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By: FEDweek StaffA good-government group has said that agencies are not fully complying with a 2019 law that requires them to report annually on recommendations made in GAO or inspector general reports that have been pending for more than a year; either present a timeline for carrying out those recommendations or a justification for why it does not plan to; and explain any discrepancies between its own list of unresolved recommendations and those kept by the entities that issued the reports.
That approach “ensures that none of the recommendations gets ignored or lost, that the agency offers a clear response to each, and that other entities — such as members of Congress or the public — can easily review both the recommendations and the responses,” said the Project on Government Oversight.
In a review of fiscal 2022 agency budget justification documents, which is where the reporting is to be made, the group found that among 19 departments and major agencies, only SSA, DHS, Justice and Commerce complied with all three main requirements of the law.
Energy, Defense, SBA, Labor and Interior did not comply with any of the requirements, it said, adding that in some cases they made brief mention of unresolved recommendations which “offered too little information to enable public accountability.”
Most agencies were unchanged compared with their 2021 budget documents, with VA, HUD and OPM showing improvement, it said.
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