Financial Disclosure System for Department of Agriculture Employees Needs Strengthening

Gao ID: FPCD-77-17 January 31, 1977

The financial disclosure system for employees of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) was reviewed to determine whether: (1) the system is effective for revealing conflict of interest situations; (2) all required disclosure statements were promptly and properly filed; and (3) the financial disclosure statements were adequately reviewed and analyzed.

The USDA financial disclosure system was found to be weak in the areas of: (1) criteria for identifying positions whose incumbents should file financial disclosure statements; (2) procedures for collecting statements; and (3) criteria for reviewing statements. More employees should be filing statements. Most agency review officials did not adequately follow up to promptly collect statements from nonfiling employees. Review of employees' financial interests was inconsistent.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: No director on record Team: No team on record Phone: No phone on record


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