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Open Recommendations

DOJ Grants Management: Further Steps Could Improve Efforts Taken to Address Early Grants IT Modernization Challenges

GAO-24-106501
May 09, 2024
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3 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status Sort ascending
Department of Justice The Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs should establish and document an approach to ensure that future organizational change management programs related to grants management include a stakeholder engagement strategy, a key element of stakeholder engagement planning. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Justice The Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs should establish and document an approach to ensure that future organizational change management programs related to grants management include a stakeholder analysis, a key element of stakeholder engagement planning. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Justice The Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs should establish and document an approach to ensure that future organizational change management programs related to grant management develop performance goals that are objective, measurable, and quantifiable and include a mix of intermediate and ultimate performance goals. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

IT Modernization: Census Bureau Needs Reliable Cost and Schedule Estimates

GAO-24-105979
Apr 29, 2024
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5 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status Sort ascending
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should direct the Director of the Census Bureau to ensure that the CEDSCI program consistently documents user stories to ensure bidirectional traceability with requirements. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should direct the Director of the Census Bureau to ensure that the CEDSCI program develops reliable cost estimates using best practices described in GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide, in particular those practices related to the comprehensive and credible characteristics. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should direct the Director of the Census Bureau to ensure that the CEDSCI program develops its schedule using the best practices described in GAO's Schedule Assessment Guide. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should direct the Director of the Census Bureau to ensure that the OCIO incorporates key elements, such as time frames, into its DevSecOps strategy and finalizes it in a timely manner. (Recommendation 4)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Commerce The Secretary of Commerce should direct the Director of the Census Bureau to ensure that the American Community Survey program develops a plan, including time frames, for the steps they intend to take to determine the most appropriate methods to protect respondent privacy in the publicly available data releases. (Recommendation 5)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Information Technology: IRS Needs to Complete Planning and Improve Reporting for Its Modernization Programs

GAO-24-106566
Mar 19, 2024
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3 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status Sort ascending
Internal Revenue Service The Commissioner of the IRS should complete the enterprise roadmap and ensure it addresses the strategic operating plan's technology objective. (Recommendation 1)
Open
In its March 2024 letter responding to our draft report, IRS noted plans to address this recommendation to complete its enterprise roadmap and stated that the work to complete the roadmap was well underway. However, the agency did not provide a time frame for when it plans to complete the roadmap. GAO will continue to monitor IRS actions to implement this recommendation.
Internal Revenue Service The Commissioner of the IRS should complete plans for its modernization programs that include (1) milestones to complete the modernization, (2) a description of the work necessary to complete the modernization, and (3) details regarding the disposition of the legacy system, if applicable. (Recommendation 2)
Open
IRS agreed with this recommendation. In its March 2024 letter responding to our draft report, IRS stated that, for each program, it will document the milestones to complete the modernization, describe the work necessary to develop the new system or to modernize the legacy system, and detail the disposition of the legacy system, if applicable. GAO will continue to monitor IRS actions to implement this recommendation.
Internal Revenue Service The Commissioner of the IRS should include information including a history of programs' cost and schedule goals and showing how the quarterly cost and schedule performance aligns with fiscal year and overall goals for the programs in its quarterly reports to Congress. (Recommendation 3)
Open
IRS agreed with this recommendation. In its March 2024 letter responding to our draft report, IRS stated that the performance history of cost and schedule goals is readily available upon request. However, in our report, we do not state that IRS does not have this information. Rather, GAO is recommending that IRS proactively include this information in its quarterly reports to Congress. This would provide additional background and clarity on IRS's efforts to modernize the agency's information technology.

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

GAO-24-105717
Jan 29, 2024
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18 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status Sort ascending
U.S. Agency for International Development The Administrator of USAID should ensure that the agency consistently tracks software licenses that are currently in use for its widely used licenses by, at a minimum, developing and implementing procedures for tracking license usage. (Recommendation 17)
Open
U.S. Agency for International Development concurred with this recommendation and stated that the agency recently implemented a software asset management solution to track software licenses purchased and is actively working on a process and an automated solution to consistently compare the inventories of software licenses in use to purchase records. When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Justice The Attorney General should ensure that the Department of Justice consistently tracks software licenses that are currently in use for its widely used licenses by, at a minimum, developing and implementing procedures for tracking license usage. (Recommendation 7)
Open
The Department of Justice agreed with this recommendation. When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
U.S. Agency for International Development The Administrator of USAID should ensure that the agency consistently compares the inventories of software licenses that are currently in use with information on purchased licenses to identify opportunities to reduce costs and better inform investment decision making for its widely used licenses on a regular basis. At a minimum, it should develop and implement procedures for comparing the inventories of licenses in use to purchase records. (Recommendation 18)
Open
U.S. Agency for International Development concurred with this recommendation and stated that the agency recently implemented a software asset management solution to track software licenses purchased and is actively working on a process and an automated solution to consistently compare the inventories of software licenses in use to purchase records. As of March 2024, the agency stated that it plans to provide a statement of actions on this recommendation on July 27, 2024. We will continue to monitor the agency's efforts to fully implement this recommendation.
Department of Justice The Attorney General should ensure that the Department of Justice consistently compares the inventories of software licenses that are currently in use with information on purchased licenses to identify opportunities to reduce costs and better inform investment decision making for its widely used licenses on a regular basis. At a minimum, it should develop and implement procedures for comparing the inventories of licenses in use to purchase records. (Recommendation 8)
Open
The Department of Justice agreed with this recommendation. As of March 2024, the department had no comments on the implementation status of this recommendation. Until the department consistently compares their inventories of software licenses in use to known purchases for each of their five most widely used software licenses, it is likely to miss opportunities to reduce costs on duplicative or unnecessary software licenses. We will continue to monitor the department's efforts to fully implement this recommendation.
Department of State The Secretary of State should ensure that the agency consistently tracks software licenses that are currently in use for its widely used licenses by, at a minimum, developing and implementing procedures for tracking license usage. (Recommendation 9)
Open
The Department of State concurred with this recommendation and stated that it is in process of implementing a software solution that will consistently track software licenses currently in use. When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of State The Secretary of State should ensure that the agency consistently compares the inventories of software licenses that are currently in use with information on purchased licenses to identify opportunities to reduce costs and better inform investment decision making for its widely used licenses on a regular basis. At a minimum, it should develop and implement procedures for comparing the inventories of licenses in use to purchase records. (Recommendation 10)
Open
The Department of State concurred with this recommendation. As of March 2024, the department stated that it has implemented a software solution to consistently compare the inventories of software licenses that are currently in use with information on purchased licenses. When we confirm the actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.