Potential for Improvement of Internal Audit Function

The audit effort within the Department of the Interior is not providing adequate internal financial audit coverage of all assets, liabilities, expenses and revenues of Interior.

Interior is responsible for the collection of revenues from the sale of power; mineral, oil, and gas leasing; grazing lands; timber sales; and recreation fees. In fiscal year (FY) 1976, Interior's revenue collections totalled $4.1 billion. Grants and contracts awarded by Interior amounted to $2.2 billion, and salaries and other expenses totaled $2 billion. During FY 1974 through 1976, Interior's Office of Audit and Investigation spent about half of its audit effort on grants and contracts and half on internal audits. The 59 audits of Interior's internal financial operations did not provide sufficient coverage of those operations. The Director of Interior said that the lack of sufficient audit staff precluded his office from auditing the financial operations of the organizations within Interior on a frequent basis and from following up on his report recommendations to make sure they were implemented.

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