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We have received and reviewed the INS and JMD responses to our draft audit report. Where appropriate, we made changes to the final report based upon the responses and information obtained at the exit conferences. In particular, we edited the first sentence of Finding I on page 5 to indicate that INS did not maintain accurate and complete data on annuitants who were rehired under OPM waiver authority. Additionally, in response to a JMD comment, we clarified page 9 of the report to indicate that the Assistant Attorney General for Administration, not the Director of JMD's Personnel Staff, currently has authority to approve waivers.
The INS and JMD responses also address each of the five report recommendations. Our comments on the responses are given below, together with the status of the recommendations and actions necessary to close the report.
- Resolved. (INS) In order to close this recommendation, please provide a copy of the procedures, practices, and associated quality control measures developed that will identify the names, series, and compensation paid to rehired annuitants who receive waivers, and evidence that this information is reconciled with data provided to the NFC.
- Resolved. (INS) In order to close this recommendation, please provide evidence that the files for all rehired annuitants who have received waivers and are currently employed at the INS contain statements that they would not have accepted the position without a waiver being granted.
- Resolved. (JMD) As stated in the report, we acknowledged that JMD personnel staff stated that they reviewed the requests against the criteria we included as APPENDIX II. We also recognize, as JMD indicated in its response to our draft report, that JMD sent the INS memoranda that provided its decisions for INS waiver requests. However, the memoranda JMD is referring to covered groups of employees and did not contain any indication of how it arrived at individual decisions for waivers that JMD approved. As we indicated in our audit report, we believe JMD should document its analysis of each request against the criteria in Appendix II. Such documentation would provide a formal record of the rationale applied by the JMD reviewers to reach their decision for each annuitant. In order to close this recommendation, please describe the methodology you intend to use to document reviews of the INS's request for waiver for each annuitant against the criteria.
- Resolved. (INS) In order to close this recommendation, please provide a copy of the long-term strategy that establishes viable alternatives to the use of reemployed annuitants using offset waivers that was approved by JMD or the successor component in the DHS.
- Resolved. (JMD) In order to close this recommendation, please provide us with the terms of the compromise JMD enacted to address mission needs while addressing the long-term goals.
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