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Open Recommendations (13 total)

Older Americans Act: Agencies Should Take Steps to Better Manage Fraud Risks

GAO-24-107391
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6 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Administration for Community Living The Administrator of ACL should establish a policy for regular fraud risk assessments in its Older Americans Act programs that aligns with the leading practices in the Fraud Risk Framework. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Administration for Community Living The Administrator of ACL should document a fraud risk profile for its Older Americans Act programs. (Recommendation 7)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Administration for Community Living The Administrator of ACL should determine a fraud risk tolerance for its Older Americans Act programs. (Recommendation 5)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Administration for Community Living The Administrator of ACL should identify inherent fraud risks in its Older Americans Act programs. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Administration for Community Living The Administrator of ACL should designate an entity to design and oversee fraud risk management activities in its Older Americans Act programs. This should include documenting the roles, responsibilities, and authorities for those leading fraud risk management activities. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Administration for Community Living The Administrator of ACL should examine the suitability of existing fraud controls and prioritize residual fraud risks in its Older Americans Act programs. (Recommendation 6)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Older Adults and Adults with Disabilities: Federal Programs Provide Support for Preventing Falls, but Program Reach is Limited

GAO-22-105276
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Administration for Community Living The Administrator of ACL should share and highlight information on falls risk and related resources for adults with disabilities who are younger than 60 more prominently among its disability network to inform state and local planning efforts. For example, to the extent possible and appropriate, ACL could work with CDC to highlight relevant falls data and leverage existing resources on falls prevention. (Recommendation 3)
Open
ACL agreed with this recommendation. As of December 2023, ACL officials said ACL's Administration on Disabilities has compiled promising practices related to falls prevention and are in the process of developing a dissemination plan for the information. Further, ACL's disability programs are beginning to participate in the Housing and Services Resource Center's training and technical assistance activities related to falls prevention. ACL officials have also met with CDC staff who work on falls prevention to discuss activities they could do jointly. ACL officials said they identified evidence-based falls prevention materials to share with CDC and with ACL's disability networks. ACL plans to continue meeting with CDC to discuss data-related actions. We encourage ACL to work with CDC to highlight relevant falls data for adults with disabilities who are younger than 60.

Small Business Research Programs: Agencies Should Further Improve Award Timeliness

GAO-22-104677
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Administration for Community Living The Administrator of the Administration for Community Living should evaluate the effectiveness of steps taken to improve SBIR award timeliness and take any necessary additional steps in order to consistently meet SBA award timeliness guidelines. (Recommendation 1)
Open – Partially Addressed
HHS agreed with this recommendation. According to an April 2022 HHS letter responding to our report as well as additional information provided by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), ACL adjusted its FY22 proposal review and award schedules to shorten them, and adjusted its phase II schedule so as to reduce the gap in funding between phases. ACL's response stated that it plans to further adjust its phase II award schedule in FY23. ACL also noted that it will evaluate the efficacy of these changes and assess the need for future steps. In December 2023, we obtained and analyzed publicly available ACL award data for FY22. Our analysis indicated that ACL did not meet SBA's award timeliness guidelines in FY22. Further, in combination with prior fiscal years, ACL has not met SBA's timeliness guidelines in at least 3 of the preceding 5 years based on available data. Going forward, we will follow up to obtain data on ACL's award timeliness in subsequent fiscal years to determine if actions the agency has taken have resulted in it being able to consistently meet SBA's award timeliness guidelines.

Elder Justice: HHS Could Do More to Encourage State Reporting on the Costs of Financial Exploitation

GAO-21-90
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Administration for Community Living The Administrator of ACL should work with state APS agencies to develop data fields on the costs of financial exploitation to add to NAMRS to encourage more states to collect these data. This could be achieved, for example, during the stakeholder engagement process ACL is undertaking to discuss potential updates for the NAMRS system. (Recommendation 1)
Open
HHS disagreed with this recommendation. HHS stated it could not guarantee that data elements capturing the cost of financial exploitation would be recommended for inclusion in NAMRS during the next renewal process. It noted that NAMRS is a voluntary data system and that HHS must consider the reporting burden on the state agencies of adding data fields to the system. We understand that HHS must consider the reporting burden on state agencies and cannot guarantee the inclusion of cost data elements in NAMRS. However, some state agencies are already collecting these cost data, and by requesting this information in NAMRS, HHS could move states towards collecting this information more routinely and in more standardized ways. In September 2022, HHS said that its stakeholder engagement process for the NAMRS renewal had concluded, and that this process did not identify requests to add information on the costs of elder financial exploitation to the NAMRS system. However, we continue to believe that working with states to add data elements to NAMRS to capture the cost of financial exploitation would help to determine the scope and magnitude of financial exploitation nationwide-currently a critical gap in knowledge about the costs of financial exploitation.
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