We provided a draft audit report to the ENRD for review and comment. The ENRD’s comments, which detail the actions it has taken or plans to implement in response to our recommendations, have been included as Appendix V to this report. This Appendix summarizes our analysis of the ENRD’s comments and proposed actions required to close the report.
Recommendations:
Closed. The ENRD updated its memorandum entitled Determination of Superfund Cases to include all ENRD litigation sections. Therefore, this recommendation is considered closed.
Resolved. The ENRD agreed with our recommendation to ensure that all travel by ENRD employees is appropriately authorized prior to incurring any travel expense. In response, the ENRD composed a memorandum to distribute to ENRD managers reminding them of their responsibilities to authorize travel before a traveler incurs travel-related expenses. In addition, the ENRD stated that it will take five additional corrective measures: (1) post an announcement on the splash screen of ENRD’s intranet reminding all employees that they must have authorization to incur travel-related expenditures prior to traveling; (2) update the travel page of ENRD’s intranet to highlight this requirement; (3) include a new “travel policies” document in ENRD’s new employee orientation package; (4) disseminate an information memorandum to all ENRD employees, reminding them that they must comply with Section 301, Part 2.1 of the Federal Travel Regulations; and (5) purchase a number of ink stamps to indicate that prior authorization has been provided by an authorizing official.
As noted in the report, this finding has been reported in prior audits. Therefore, this recommendation can be closed when subsequent Superfund audits verify that ENRD employees received appropriate authorization prior to incurring travel- related expenses.
Resolved. The ENRD agreed with our recommendation to ensure that all FY 2004 and 2005 Superfund SOC 2508 transactions are allocated to the correct case number within the Superfund database and the Financial Management Information System (FMIS). In response, the ENRD generated a complete list of SOC 2508 Superfund transactions for FY 2004 and 2005 to locate each relevant invoice and compare the case number identified on the invoice to the case number keyed into FMIS. This recommendation can be closed when we review and evaluate documentation substantiating that ENRD reviewed all FY 2004 and 2005 Superfund SOC 2508 transactions, and corrected any errors noted during this review.