,V16D Sr/|, I 5 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General At a Glance 08-P-0276 September 24, 2008 Catalyst for Improving the Environment Why We Did This Review We performed this audit to determine what corrective actions the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took as a result of our 2005 audit of grants accountability. Background In February 2005, the Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure asked the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to evaluate whether EPA held supervisors and their project officers accountable for grants management responsibilities. The resulting review, dated September 27, 2005, identified a number of continuing grants management weaknesses. In response to the OIG's report, EPA provided a corrective action plan with milestones for completing the plan steps. EPA Actions Should Lead to Improved Grants Accountability What We Found EPA implemented the corrective action plan it prepared in response to the September 2005 OIG report on grant accountability. In the 2005 report, we recommended that EPA establish a process to measure project officer, supervisor, and manager performance against grants management requirements. EPA established a process for measuring project officer performance, including quantitative performance measures such as the average number of days to transmit funding recommendations and the number of baseline monitoring activities for active awards. The 2005 report recommended that EPA ensure managers and supervisors discuss grants management during performance reviews. Surveys of project officers and supervisors indicate that the discussions are occurring. The 2005 report also recommended that EPA ensure weaknesses identified in management reviews are communicated to project officers. Office of Grants and Debarment provided program offices and regions with the results of grants management reviews and comprehensive performance reviews with the instruction to distribute the information to supervisors and project officers. EPA's actions should lead to improvements in managing assistance agreements. This report contains no recommendations. In its response, EPA stated that it will continue to work with the grants management community to ensure that grants accountability is a focal point in managing assistance agreements. For further information, contact our Office of Congressional and Public Liaison at (202) 566-2391. To view the full report, click on the following link: www.epa.qov/oiq/reports/2008/ 20080924-08-P-0276.pdf ------- |