Interior FMFIA

GAO reviewed the Department of the Interior's second-year implementation of the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA), which requires federal agencies to: (1) establish internal controls in accordance with the Comptroller General's standards for agency internal controls; (2) report to the President and Congress on whether their internal controls fully comply with FMFIA requirements and on any material internal control weaknesses they identify; and (3) report on whether their accounting systems conform to the standards prescribed by the Comptroller General.

GAO found that Interior: (1) reported that 23 of the 61 material internal control weaknesses it identified in 1983 have been corrected, but 24 of the weaknesses it was to correct during 1984 have not been corrected, including a significant weakness in the royalty management program that was first identified in 1977; (2) has established a sound program for internal control evaluations, but has not properly implemented the program; (3) did not include adequate testing in many of its internal control reviews (ICR); and (4) failed to implement effective quality assurance procedures for ICR or train individuals in performing such reviews. GAO also found that: (1) while Interior evaluated its accounting systems, it did not adequately test the systems that it reported as being in conformance with the Comptroller General's requirements; and (2) the four systems that Interior reported as nonconforming account for about 50 percent of its appropriations and almost all of its receipts.

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.

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