Special Report on Review of "The Department of Energy's Quality Assurance Process for Prime Recipients' Reporting for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act"
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was established to jumpstart the U.S. economy, create or save millions of jobs, spur technological advances in health and science, and invest in the Nation's energy future. The Department of Energy (Department) will receive an unprecedented $37 billion in Recovery Act funding to support a variety of science, energy, and environmental initiatives. The majority of the funding received by the Department will be allocated to various recipients through grants, cooperative agreements, contracts, and other financial instruments. To ensure transparency and accountability, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires that recipients report on their receipt and use of Recovery Act funds on a quarterly basis to FederalReporting.gov. OMB also specifies that Federal agencies should develop and implement formal procedures to help ensure the quality of recipient reported information. Data that must be reported by recipients includes total funding received; funds expended or obligated; projects or activities for which funds were obligated or expended; and the number of jobs created and/or retained. OMB requires that Federal agencies perform limited data quality reviews of recipient data to identify material omissions and/or significant reporting errors and notify the recipients of the need to make appropriate and timely changes to erroneous reports. As part of a larger audit of recipient Recovery Act reporting and performance measurement and in support of a Government-wide review sponsored by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, we completed an interim review to determine whether the Department had established a process to ensure the quality and accuracy of recipient reports. Our review revealed that the Department had developed a quality assurance process to facilitate the quarterly reviews of recipient data. The process included procedures to compare existing information from the Department's financial information systems with that reported to FederalReporting.gov by recipients. In addition, plans were in place to notify recipients of anomalies and/or errors exposed by the quality assurance process. While the Department has made a good deal of progress in this area, we did, however, identify several issues which could, if not addressed, impact the effectiveness of the quality assurance process.
- Research Organization:
- DOEIG (USDOE Office of the Inspector General (IG) (United States))
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 967388
- Report Number(s):
- OAS-RA-10-01; TRN: US200924%%69
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Special Report on the "Department of Energy's Efforts to Meet Accountability and Performance Reporting Objectives of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act"
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