Improvements Needed in GSA's Second Year Implementation of the Financial Integrity Act

Gao ID: GGD-86-11 October 11, 1985

GAO reviewed the General Services Administration's (GSA) fiscal year (FY) 1984 progress in evaluating the adequacy of its internal controls and accounting systems under the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act.

GAO found that: (1) GSA has corrected 9 of the 62 deficiencies it identified in its internal control system, but because some of the deficiencies are complex, it will be years before GSA can reasonably expect to correct them; (2) only 7 of 196 GSA managers' evaluations identified any of the reported control deficiencies; and (3) almost all of the evaluations indicated low or no vulnerability to internal control problems. GAO found that, in general, managers were not properly prepared to do the evaluation work necessary to identify control weaknesses because: (1) the complex evaluation process was implemented late in the FY, leaving little time for training, doing the evaluations, and reviewing evaluation quality; and (2) the criteria to evaluate internal controls were found by many managers to be too general to assess automated systems and identify internal control weaknesses. GAO believed that the GSA managers' perception that the evaluations accomplish little contributed to unreliable evaluations. Finally, GAO found that, although GSA identified instances of material accounting system nonconformance with the Comptroller General's requirements, the evaluations were of insufficient depth and scope to provide GSA with an adequate basis for determining the extent to which the systems did not conform to the requirements because: (1) the evaluations included little testing of systems in operation; and (2) regional systems were not examined.

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: Gene L. Dodaro Team: General Accounting Office: General Government Division Phone: (202) 512-9459


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.