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Open Recommendations (84 total)

Tribal Funding: Actions Needed to Improve Information on Federal Funds That Benefit Native Americans

GAO-22-104602
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the Office of Tribal Relations and the Office of Budget and Program Analysis develop a formal process to ensure meaningful and timely input from tribal officials when formulating budget requests and program reauthorization proposals for programs serving tribes and their members. (Recommendation 6)
Open
The Department of Agriculture neither agreed nor disagreed with this recommendation, but indicated that it is in the process of updating its consultation policy. We will continue to follow-up with the agency to determine what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation.

Equal Employment Opportunity: Additional Actions Would Improve USDA's Collection and Reporting of Key Data

GAO-24-106791
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that OASCR develops internal guidance on how to compare the data in USDA's No FEAR Act and EEOC Form 462 reports when reviewing for inconsistencies during the data review process. (Recommendation 4)
Open
As of January 2024, USDA has not implemented this recommendation.

Genetically Engineered Crops: USDA Needs to Enhance Oversight and Better Understand Impacts of Unintended Mixing with Other Crops

GAO-16-241
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture To improve USDA's ability to better understand the economic impacts of unintended mixing of GE and other crops, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Administrator of NASS to include producers, growing identity-preserved crops, in addition to organic producers in USDA's survey efforts.
Open
In its August 2016 Statement of Action on our report, USDA did not provide any new information on actions it has taken, if any, to implement this recommendation. We continue to believe that USDA should survey producers growing identity-preserved crops regarding their potential economic losses from unintended GE presence, as is being done for organic producers. As we previously reported, U.S. acreage planted to identity-preserved crops is significantly greater than that planted to organic crops; yet, little is known about the economic costs to identity-preserved farmers of unintended mixing. As of February 2022, USDA did not have an update regarding the implementation of this recommendation. We will continue to follow up on USDA's efforts. As of December 2023, we are following up with USDA and will update this recommendation when we have additional information.

Agency Relocations: Following Leading Practices Will Better Position USDA to Mitigate the Ongoing Impacts on Its Workforce

GAO-23-104709
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Research, Education, and Economics Under Secretary should require ERS to more fully follow leading practices for strategic workforce planning, such as documenting a strategic workforce plan and agency succession plans. (Recommendation 3)
Open
As of February 2024, GAO is assessing the actions reported by the agency.

Federal Software Licenses: Agencies Need to Take Action to Achieve Additional Savings

GAO-24-105717
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the agency tracks software licenses that are currently in use for its widely used licenses by, at a minimum, consistently implementing its procedures for tracking license usage. (Recommendation 1)
Open
The Department of Agriculture generally concurred with this recommendation. When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

IT Modernization: USDA Needs to Improve Oversight of Farm Production and Conservation Mission Area

GAO-21-512
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) directs the Business Center Chief Operating Officer to have the FPAC mission area implement the key IT workforce planning activity of developing strategies and plans to address gaps in competencies and staffing. (Recommendation 8)
Open
In August 2023, agency officials noted that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Workforce Steering Committee had updated the technical competencies for its IT workforce. Subsequently the FPAC Human Resources group used the updated competencies to develop a competency assessment process. However, agency officials stated that that the assessment process was put on hold. FPAC officials noted that in August 2023 they began the process of restarting the competency assessments. We will continue to review FPAC's progress in this area.

Cloud Security: Selected Agencies Need to Fully Implement Key Practices

GAO-23-105482
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the agency fully implements continuous monitoring for its selected SaaS system 2, to include reviewing the continuous monitoring deliverables from the CSP. (Recommendation 4)
Open
In September 2023, Agriculture stated that they plan to review continuous monitoring reports from the cloud service provider (CSP) on a monthly basis. In addition, the officials stated that they plan to document their review using a continuous monitoring checklist. In January 2024, officials stated that the CSP's continuous monitoring deliverables at the departmental level. However, as of February 2024, we have not received documentation demonstrating that these reviews are performed. We will continue to monitor the agency's efforts to address our recommendation.

Privacy: Dedicated Leadership Can Improve Programs and Address Challenges

GAO-22-105065
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should establish a time frame for incorporating privacy into an organization-wide risk management strategy that includes a determination of risk tolerance, and develop and document this strategy. (Recommendation 6)
Open
The Department of Agriculture stated that it generally agreed with the findings and recommendations in our report. As of February 2023, the department stated that its Office of Budget and Program Analysis will incorporate privacy and a process for developing risk tolerance into the USDA Enterprise Risk Management strategy through departmental guidance. It estimated completing these efforts by the end of December 2023. As of March 2024, USDA had not provided additional evidence of these actions. Once the department states that it has taken action, we plan to verify whether implementation has occurred.

Equal Employment Opportunity: Additional Actions Would Improve USDA's Collection and Reporting of Key Data

GAO-24-106791
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that OASCR documents and implements an internal quality review process for Farm Bill reports to identify and correct any errors and incomplete information. This process should include assigning the role of quality review to someone, independent from the work itself, who verifies that the key facts, figures, and findings align with the sources and are correctly reported. (Recommendation 6)
Open
As of January 2024, USDA reported that it has implemented this recommendation. We are reviewing USDA's documentation and will update the status of this recommendation.

Federal Property: Improved Monitoring, Oversight, and Data Would Help Understand Effects of Providing Property to Non-Federal Recipients

GAO-20-101
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Office of Property and Fleet Management to consistently monitor property provided to non-federal recipients within 1 year of receipt, and to ensure property is being used for its intended purpose 1 year after initial monitoring. (Recommendation 1)
Open
As of March 2024, we requested an updated from USDA regarding the status of its efforts to implement this recommendation. When USDA responds to our request, we will update the status of this recommendation accordingly.
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