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Office of the Inspector General: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 

Semiannual Report: 

October 1, 2013 – March 31, 2014 

April 2014: 

OIG-14-3SP: 

Memorandum: 

Date: April 30, 2014: 

To: Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro: 

From: [Signed by] Inspector General Adam R. Trzeciak: 

Subject: Semiannual Report—October 1, 2013, through March 31, 2014: 

I am submitting this report in accordance with Section 5 of the 
Government Accountability Office Act of 2008 (GAO Act).[Footnote 1] 
The report summarizes the activities of the Office of Inspector 
General (OIG) for the first reporting period of fiscal year 2014. 

The act requires that you transmit the report to Congress within 30 
days after receipt. Your transmittal should also include any comments 
you consider appropriate. 

During this reporting period, OIG completed fieldwork on one audit and 
continued or began fieldwork on two additional audits. OIG closed four 
investigations and opened three investigations. OIG also processed 185 
hotline complaints, which generally involved other federal and state 
programs. I continued to brief new GAO employees on the audit and 
investigative functions of GAO's OIG. In addition, OIG staff remained 
active in the OIG community through participation on Council of 
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency committees and working 
groups. Details of these activities and other OIG accomplishments 
are provided below. 

I appreciate management's support and thank GAO's Executive Committee, 
managers, and staff for their cooperation during our reviews. OIG's 
team of dedicated professionals remains committed to helping GAO 
improve the services it provides for American taxpayers. The 
accomplishments reported in this letter are the direct result of their 
efforts. 

[End of section] 

Introduction: 

The United States Government Accountability Office: 

GAO is the audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of the Congress. 
It supports congressional oversight by (1) auditing agency operations 
to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and 
effectively; (2) investigating allegations of illegal and improper 
activities; (3) reporting on how well government programs and policies 
are meeting their objectives; (4) performing policy analyses and 
outlining options for congressional consideration; and (5) issuing 
legal decisions and opinions, such as bid protest rulings and reports 
on agency rules. 

The Office of Inspector General: 

Established as a statutory office by the GAO Act, GAO's OIG 
independently conducts audits, evaluations, and other reviews of GAO 
programs and operations and makes recommendations to promote the agency'
s economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. OIG also investigates 
allegations of fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement, and other serious 
problems in GAO's programs and operations, including the possible 
violation of any law or regulation. 

Activities Of The Office Of Inspector General: 

Audits: 

We completed fieldwork on an audit of GAO's undercover funds and 
provided management with our draft report for comment. The objective 
of this audit was to determine the effectiveness of controls over 
GAO's undercover funds. We continued to perform fieldwork on an audit 
of GAO's Federal Employees' Compensation Act program, and we began an 
audit of GAO's privacy program. 

Complaints and Investigations: 

The OIG's hotline continues to be our primary source of complaints or 
information for identifying suspected fraud and other problems, 
abuses, and deficiencies relating to the administration of GAO's 
programs and operations. As shown in table 1, we processed 185 hotline 
complaints during this 6-month reporting period. Of those, 3 
complaints led to OIG investigations. 

Table 1: Summary of OIG Hotline Complaint Activities, October 1, 2013, 
through March 31, 2014: 

Hotline complaints open at the start of the reporting period: 33 

New hotline complaints received this reporting period: 152 

Total hotline complaints: 185 

Complaints closed (referred to other GAO offices): 4; 
Complaints closed (referred to FraudNet[A]): 9; 
Complaints closed (insufficient information/no basis): 124; 
Complaints closed (no jurisdiction and referred to appropriate agency 
OIG or other law enforcement offices): 33; 
Complaints closed (converted to investigations): 3; 
Total hotline complaints open at the end of the reporting period: 12. 

Source: OIG. 

[A] FraudNet is a government-wide hotline operated by GAO staff that 
receives complaints of fraud, waste, and abuse of federal 
funds spent by other federal agencies. 

[End of table] 

Table 1 identifies 124 complaints that were closed due to insufficient 
information or no basis upon which to open an investigation. These 
complaints generally involved other federal and state programs, not 
GAO programs and operations. We report them here because, typically, 
the OIG spends considerable time evaluating the issues contained in a 
complaint in order to redirect the complainant to the appropriate 
administrative or law enforcement organization with proper 
jurisdiction over the allegations in the complaint. 

As shown in table 2, there were 17 open investigations during this 
reporting period. At the end of the reporting period, 13 
investigations remained open. 

Table 2: Summary of OIG Investigations, October 1, 2013, through March 
31, 2014: 

Investigations open at the start of the reporting period: 14; 
New investigations initiated this reporting period: 3; 
Total investigations: 17; 
Investigations closed this reporting period: 4; 
Total investigations open at the end of the reporting period: 13. 

Source: OIG. 

[End of table] 

We closed an investigation involving an employee's unauthorized 
release of nonpublic information. The employee, a manager, leaked a 
document regarding a congressional request for GAO work. Our 
investigation identified the source of the leak, and the employee 
admitted making the unauthorized disclosure. We referred the matter to 
agency management for administrative action during the prior reporting 
period. In this reporting period, GAO management imposed a 5-day 
suspension on the employee. 

We also closed an investigation regarding an allegation of an 
employee's time and attendance abuse. The investigation determined 
that the employee, a manager, did not work 192 hours of claimed and 
paid work time during a 13-month period in 2012 and 2013. This 
represented more than $12,000 in false claims. The Department of 
Justice declined prosecution, and we referred our investigative 
findings to GAO management for appropriate action. The employee 
resigned before management's final action. 

We closed the remaining investigations after OIG staff determined that 
the allegations could not be substantiated. 

Other Activities: 

Activities Within GAO: 

The IG discusses the duties, responsibilities, and authorities of the 
GAO OIG with participants in GAO's new employee orientation program. 
The IG's Counsel collaborated with GAO's Learning Center to revise the 
agency's fraud awareness course for agency staff. Furthermore, OIG 
processed one Freedom of Information Act request, which we addressed 
in accordance with procedures set forth in 4 C.F.R. Part 81. 

Activities Within The Inspector General Community: 

OIG participated in the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and 
Efficiency (CIGIE), a council of federal inspectors general that 
promotes collaboration on integrity, economy, and efficiency issues 
that transcend individual agencies. The IG and Deputy IG regularly 
participated in monthly CIGIE meetings, quarterly Legislative Branch 
Inspectors General meetings, and periodic meetings with other OIGs 
designed to address issues common to smaller OIGs. The Deputy IG 
participated in quarterly Deputy IG meetings. The Assistant Inspector 
General for Investigations (AIGI) regularly participated in quarterly 
CIGIE Investigations Committee and AIGI Committee meetings. The IG 
Counsel also participated in monthly Council of Counsels to Inspectors 
General meetings. 

Audit Peer Review Activities: 

Government Auditing Standards require that each organization 
performing audits in accordance with these standards must have an 
external peer review. The objectives of a peer review are to determine 
whether an effective quality control system has been established in 
the office and if policies, procedures, and applicable government 
auditing standards are followed. Peer reviews must be performed at 
least once every 3 years by reviewers independent of the audit 
organization being reviewed. The OIG is scheduled for a peer review in 
fiscal year 2015. 

Activities Within The United States Commission On Civil Rights: 

The Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2012 
[Footnote 2] designated the Inspector General of the Government 
Accountability Office to serve as the Inspector General of the U.S. 
Commission on Civil Rights (Commission). The Inspector General's 
statutory authority over the Commission ends in 2014.[Footnote 3] 

GAO Actions On OIG Recommendations: 

Timely resolution of outstanding audit recommendations continues to be 
a priority for both our office and the agency. Table 3 presents the 
status of actions planned and taken by GAO in response to open 
recommendations, as of March 31, 2014. 

Table 3: Status of Agency Actions on Open Recommendations, as of March 
31, 2014: 

OIG audit reports: Human Capital: Opportunities Exist to Strengthen 
Controls over Recruitment, Relocation, and Retention Incentives, OIG-
12-5 (Aug. 28, 2012); 
Open recommendations: 
Incorporate the use of recruitment, relocation, and retention 
incentives into GAO's strategic human capital planning 
to specify a plan for their use, the results GAO expects to achieve, 
and the measures that will be used to assess their effectiveness; 
Status of actions planned and taken by GAO in response to the 
recommendations: 
GAO issued its Human Capital Strategic Plan 2013-2015 in July 2013. 
The updated plan identified the use of incentives to recruit and 
retain staff with critical skills as initiatives intended to support 
the agency's recruitment and hiring goals. GAO is continuing efforts to 
develop an action plan, which specifies (1) how the agency intends to 
use recruitment, relocation, and retention incentives in support of its 
recruitment and hiring goals, (2) the results the agency expects to 
achieve, and (3) the measures that it will use to gauge the 
effectiveness of these incentives. GAO expects to complete its action 
plan by June 30, 2014. 

OIG audit reports: Security Clearances: Actions Needed to Strengthen 
Controls over Top Secret Security Clearance Requirements, OIG-13-3 
(Sept. 27, 2013); 

Open recommendations: Establish and implement detailed procedures that 
define consistent criteria and processes to ensure that the agency's 
position designation and position sensitivity policies are carried out; 
Status of actions planned and taken by GAO in response to the 
recommendations: 
GAO is in the final phase of establishing consistent criteria and a 
process for evaluating a position's need for a security clearance. 
Specifically, GAO is developing and implementing a standard form that 
is intended to document unit heads' (1) assessment using consistent 
criteria of whether a given position requires access to classified 
information and (2) detailed justifications explaining an 
employee's need for a security clearance. 

Open recommendations: Establish procedures to ensure that 
decisions to grant top secret security clearances are grounded in 
written justifications. 

Status of actions planned and taken by GAO in response to the 
recommendations: GAO is updating and revising its personnel security 
program policy and directive with detailed procedures that define the 
consistent criteria and process for evaluating and documenting a 
position's need for a security clearance. 

Source: OIG. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Reporting Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in GAO's Internal Operations: 

To report fraud and other serious problems, abuses, and deficiencies 
relating to GAO programs and operations, do one of the following. (You 
may do so anonymously.) 

* Call toll-free (866) 680-7963 to speak with a hotline specialist, 
available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

* Online at: [hyperlink, https://OIG.alertline.com]. 

Obtaining Copies of OIG Reports and Testimony: 

To obtain copies of OIG reports and testimony, go to GAO's website: 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/about/workforce/ig.html]. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] 31 U.S.C. § 705 (2012). 

[2] Pub. L. No. 112-55, 125 Stat. 552, 628 (Nov. 18, 2011). 

[3] Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-76, 128 
Stat. 5 (Jan. 17, 2014). 

[End of document]