Department of State's Progress in Implementing the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act

GAO reviewed the Department of State's compliance with the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act of 1982 (FMFIA) to assess: (1) whether actions taken as a result of the act are improving internal control and accounting systems; (2) its progress in implementing a program for evaluating systems of internal control; and (3) the reasonableness of State FMFIA reports.

GAO noted that State is making progress toward correcting reported internal control weaknesses; however, it has not made adequate progress in correcting long known weaknesses and accounting deficiencies related to personal property management. GAO found that: (1) the 1984 report on accounting systems stated that the systems were not in conformance with the Comptroller General's requirements; (2) areas excepted from the report on internal controls were of major importance to State operations; (3) the FMFIA implementation program has not resulted in detailed evaluations and tests of all systems of internal control; (4) effective action has not been taken to correct accounting and internal control weaknesses in personal property management; and (5) specific problems were not listed in the FMFIA report, but the report made reference to the problems and characterized them as minor accounting deficiencies. GAO also found that: (1) controls over personal property management were not adequate because of the lack of a departmentwide system for managing and accounting for property; (2) State failed to perform physical inventories at all locations and reconcile the inventories to financial records; (3) some vulnerability assessments and internal control reviews were not completed and analyzed by the year's end; and (4) no formal requirements exist to review the reasonableness of proposed corrective actions or to test and evaluate their effectiveness after implementation.

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: Martin M. Ferber Team: General Accounting Office: National Security and International Affairs Division Phone: (202) 275-8412