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Open Recommendations

Social Security Death Data: Do Not Pay System Has Yielded Financial Benefits, but SSA Should Better Evaluate States’ Cost to Obtain Data
GAO-26-107181
Feb 12, 2026
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3 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Social Security Administration The SSA Commissioner should ensure that contracts for state death data reflect statutorily authorized costs and include necessary documentation required by law. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Social Security Administration The SSA Commissioner should ensure that SSA conducts an analysis of state cost information, including its availability, and determine whether renegotiating the fee schedule for state death data is necessary to ensure that prices reflect statutorily authorized costs. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Social Security Administration The SSA Commissioner should ensure that SSA revises its methodology for allocating costs to obtain state death data to incorporate costs for calculating proportional shares of state death data costs. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Military Financial Education: DOD Should Improve Oversight to Ensure Trainings Effectively Support Service Members
GAO-25-107666
Apr 08, 2025
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3 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Defense The Secretary of Defense should take additional steps to ensure the military services modify administrative systems to increase the accuracy of tracking service member completion of the financial readiness common military training. (Recommendation 1)
Open
DOD agreed with this recommendation. As of June 2025, DOD reported that it has asked the military services to include additional information about their tracking systems and training completion data in their annual financial readiness training plans. DOD will use this information to determine the status of tracking systems and develop an action plan. DOD anticipates full implementation of changes will be a multi-year effort. We will monitor DOD's efforts and will consider closing this recommendation once DOD has demonstrated that the military services have modified their administrative systems and increased the accuracy of tracking training completion.
Department of Defense The Secretary of Defense should ensure the military services identify and address causes of financial readiness common military training non-completion. (Recommendation 2)
Open
DOD agreed with this recommendation. In June 2025, DOD reported that it has requested that the military services provide additional information about causes of training non-completion in their annual financial readiness training plans. DOD will use this information to create an action plan. We will consider closing this recommendation once DOD has demonstrated that the military services have identified and addressed causes of training non-completion.
Department of Defense The Secretary of Defense should establish a timeline for determining which standardized performance measures, if any, are needed to measure the effectiveness of DOD's financial education efforts. If any performance measures are selected, DOD should also establish a timeline to implement those measures. (Recommendation 3)
Open
DOD agreed with this recommendation. In June 2025, DOD reported that it plans to establish performance measures and the timeline for doing so will be developed based on feedback from the military services due in August 2025. We will consider closing this recommendation once DOD has demonstrated that it has established a timeline for implementing any new performance measures.

Retirement Investments: Agencies Can Better Oversee Conflicts of Interest Between Fiduciaries and Investors
GAO-24-104632
Aug 28, 2024
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Internal Revenue Service The Commissioner of the IRS should develop and implement a process independent of DOL referrals for identifying non-exempt prohibited transactions involving firms or financial professionals who are fiduciaries to IRAs and assessing applicable excise taxes. For example, IRS could check Form 5330 filing compliance during income tax audits of financial services firms. (Recommendation 1)
Open
IRS agreed with this recommendation and stated that it would examine the processes and consider implementing additional measures to identify prohibited transactions as appropriate. We await progress on these efforts.
Internal Revenue Service The Commissioner of the IRS should coordinate with DOL through a formal means, such as a memorandum of understanding, on non-exempt prohibited transactions involving firms and financial professionals who are IRA fiduciaries and owe excise tax. (Recommendation 2)
Open
IRS agreed with this recommendation. IRS stated it will explore opportunities to develop more formal means for coordination between IRS and DOL for prohibited transactions related to investment advice provided to IRA owners from financial services firms. We await progress on these efforts.

Thrift Savings Plan: Investment Board Needs to Greatly Improve Acquisition Management and Contractor Oversight
GAO-24-106319
Aug 01, 2024
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3 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board The FRTIB Executive Director should develop a process that requires FRTIB to review milestone-related documentation to ensure that it fully addresses the milestone requirement. (Recommendation 3)
Open
In January 2025, FRTIB informed us that it was developing standard operating procedures to describe documentation that will be required for each milestone to be approved. The agency stated that the procedures will be for all new initiatives and projects. As of September 2025, FRTIB had not provided these procedures nor an estimated date for completing them. We will continue to follow up on FRTIB's progress in completing this action.
Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board The Executive Director of FRTIB should expedite negotiations with its contractor to modify, where feasible, the TSP services contract to ensure that all pertinent data necessary for performance oversight is provided by the contractor. (Recommendation 4)
Open – Partially Addressed
In January 2025, FRTIB informed us that it is now receiving all pertinent data to conduct performance oversight of the Accenture Federal Services contract for TSP services. However, our review of supporting information provided by FRTIB in September 2025 indicated that FRTIB may still not be receiving information required to fully oversee contractor performance. For example, when overseeing timeliness and accuracy of legal and death claims, it is not clear that FRTIB is receiving information about when the claims were received or the documentation used to process death claims or court orders. We have requested additional information from the agency and will update the status of this recommendation once received.
Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board The FRTIB Executive Director should negotiate with its contractor to modify, where feasible, the TSP services contract to include a requirement that FRTIB is notified of any new staff assigned to the contract, including the name and title of the staff, to help ensure appropriate background investigations are conducted. (Recommendation 5)
Open
In September 2025, FRTIB provided information that demonstrates that it has established policies and procedures for ensuring that contractor staff obtain a background investigation prior to obtaining system access. However, it is unclear, from the documentation provided, whether FRTIB is provided the job titles and positions of contractors that are newly hired to be able to ensure that the background investigation that is being requested for the individuals is the correct one. We have requested additional information from the agency and will update the status of the recommendation once received.
Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board The Executive Director of FRTIB should establish a documented procedure to ensure any future third parties providing services for the TSP are able to provide transactional data needed for oversight prior to performing these services. (Recommendation 6)
Open
In January 2025, FRTIB informed us that it was updating its Contracting Standard Operating Procedures to include contractor requirements for future oversight activities, to include access to third-party data. According to the agency, the necessary oversight data will be incorporated into a future quality assurance surveillance plan modification to ensure ongoing oversight of the current TSP services vendor. As of November 2025, FRTIB has not provided an update on the status of the recommendation nor an estimated date for completing these actions. We will continue to follow up on FRTIB's progress in completing these actions.
Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board The Executive Director of FRTIB should reevaluate and adjust the Performance Related Compensation Adjustment framework to focus on areas with the largest financial impact to participants, including issue resolution and timeliness and accuracy of transactions processing. (Recommendation 7)
Open – Partially Addressed
In January 2025, the FRTIB informed us that it reevaluates the penalty eligible service level requirements in the Performance Related Compensation Adjustment framework on an annual basis and will continue to do so to determine the need for any changes. In September 2025, FRTIB provided an updated Performance Related Compensation Adjustment framework that reflected very few changes since the time of our review. FRTIB added penalties for participant processing accuracy, but other areas with financial impact to participants, such as processing time and transaction processing time are neither penalized nor credited. We have requested additional information from FRTIB on the framework's review process and will update the status of the recommendation once received.
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