The Health Resources and Services Administration Resolved All of Its Audit Recommendations, With Over 99 Percent Resolved in Accordance With Federal Timeliness Requirements

Why OIG Did This Review

HHS, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), is subject to Federal audits of its internal activities as well as Federal and non-Federal audits of activities performed by its grantees and contractors. As a followup to these audits, HRSA is responsible for resolving Federal and non-Federal audit report recommendations related to its activities, grantees, and contractors within 6 months after formal receipt of the audit reports. HHS, OIG, prepares and forwards to HRSA monthly stewardship reports that show the status of these reported audit recommendations.

Our objectives were to determine whether HRSA resolved audit recommendations in a timely manner during Federal fiscal years (FYs) 2015 and 2016 and to identify all unresolved audit recommendations that were due for resolution as of September 30, 2016.

How OIG Did This Review

We reviewed the "Outstanding Audits and Actions Taken by Cognizance" stewardship reports to identify all outstanding audit recommendations that HRSA resolved during FYs 2015 and 2016, as well as all outstanding recommendations that remained unresolved and were due for resolution as of September 30, 2016. These stewardship reports identified 550 audit reports and 1,434 corresponding recommendations.

What OIG Found

HRSA resolved all of its audit recommendations during FYs 2015 and 2016, nearly all of them in a timely manner. Of the 1,434 audit recommendations that HRSA resolved during FYs 2015 and 2016, 1,427 (99.5 percent) were resolved within the required 6-month period. Furthermore, all of the other seven recommendations (0.5 percent) that were not resolved within the 6-month resolution period were resolved within 21 days or less of the end of that resolution period.

HRSA had policies and procedures in place to ensure that audit recommendations were resolved in compliance with Federal requirements, which require resolution of audit recommendations within 6 months of the audit report's issuance date. HRSA consistently followed these policies and procedures, and as a result, it issued nearly all management decisions and submitted nearly all of the related clearance documents to OIG within the required 6-month resolution period. In addition, HRSA performed reconciliations between its records and the OIG stewardship reports and followed up with OIG on differences when they were noted. According to HRSA officials, timely audit resolution is a very high priority.

What OIG Recommends

Because HRSA was substantially in compliance with Federal audit resolution requirements, this report contains no recommendations. commendations.