*. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	15-2-0165
June 11, 2015
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	 \ Office of Inspector General
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At a Glance
Why We Did This Review
The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA's)
Region 9 requested assistance
from the Office of Inspector
General (OIG) due to concerns
about the accounting system in
place at the Walker River
Paiute Tribe.
EPA Region 9 was also
concerned about the tribe's
indirect cost rate proposal for
2014 and outstanding
incomplete grant tasks under
EPA grant GA-96926201.
This report addresses the
following EPA goal or
cross-agency strategy:
• Working to make a visible
difference in communities.
Walker River Paiute Tribe Needs to Improve Its
Internal Controls to Comply With Federal Regulations
What We Found
Our audit determined that the Walker River Paiute
Tribe's accounting system and written policies and
procedures complied with federal regulations.
However, our testing disclosed multiple instances
where the tribe's actual practices did not comply
with federal regulations related to personnel costs,
indirect costs and in-kind contributions.
The Walker River Paiute
Tribe did not comply
with federal regulations,
resulting in $994,963 of
questioned costs.
Send all inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391
or visit www.epa.gov/oia.
Our audit also found incomplete grant tasks remaining from an EPA General
Assistance Program grant for fiscal years 2008 through 2012.
Recommendations
We recommend that the Region 9 Regional Administrator disallow and recover
unsupported costs of $841,477, unless the tribe can provide adequate support for
these costs. We also recommend that the Region 9 Regional Administrator:
•	Disallow and recover ineligible costs of $1,591.
•	Require the tribe to implement better internal controls to ensure
compliance with applicable federal regulations, grant conditions, and the
tribe's own policies and procedures.
In addition, we recommend that the Region 9 Regional Administrator disallow
and recover $151,895 in claimed costs associated with the remaining incomplete
tasks, unless the tribe can provide documents to substantiate completion of those
tasks. We also recommend that for future General Assistance Program grants,
the Region 9 Regional Administrator implement special grant conditions that
require completion of grant tasks before grant payments are made.
The tribe did not comment on recommendations relating to internal controls and
special grant conditions, but did concur with one recommendation and provided
additional documentation for the remainder of the recommendations. However,
the tribe's documentation did not meet federal requirements, so our positions on
the issues remain unchanged.
The full report is at:
www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2015/
20150611-15-2-0165.pdf

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