Bureau of Indian Affairs' Efforts to Reconcile and Audit the Indian Trust Funds

GAO discussed the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) efforts to reconcile and audit the Indian trust funds. GAO noted that: (1) numerous audit reports have pointed out serious accounting and financial management problems and weak internal controls throughout BIA; (2) the lack of general ledger control over accounts, inaccurate data, the lack of accounting systems documentation, and inadequate management of the Indian trust funds caused numerous accounting errors; (3) the first phase of the BIA trust fund reconciliation and audit project would identify the correct account balances for over 500 tribal accounts and 17,000 individual Indian money trust accounts; and (4) BIA planned to use the first-phase results to develop plans for moving into a second phase that would cover the remaining 1,500 tribal and 283,000 individual Indian money accounts. GAO believes that: (1) legislation may be needed to provide appropriations for monies owed to account holders or relief for unrecoverable overpayments that go back many years; (2) BIA planned to implement the Department of the Interior's six-part plan to help it control fund accounting transactions, reconcile all account balances, and implement a new Interior-wide accounting system; and (3) BIA must ensure that it carries out its financial responsibilities efficiently and effectively by developing a comprehensive financial management plan for both its appropriated funds and trust fund operations.

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: McCoy Williams Team: Government Accountability Office: Financial Management and Assurance Phone: (202) 512-6906