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U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
Operating efficiently and effectively
EPA Reported Its Fiscal
Year 2017 Second Quarter
Financial and Award Data in
Accordance With the DATA Act
Report No. 18-P-0037	November 9, 2017
Sub-award
Attributes
(File F)
Appropriations
Account
(File A)
Additional
Awardee
Attributes
(File E)
Public Website:
	
USASpending.gov
DATA Act
Reporting
Award and Awardee
Attributes
[Procurement] (File Dl)
[Financial Assistance]
(File D2)
Object Class
and Program
Activity (File B)
Award
Financial
(FileC)

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Report Contributors:	Paul Curtis
Robert Evans
Margaret Hiatt
Jennifer Hutkoff
Demetrios Papakonstantinou
Kevin Ross
Abbreviations
CIGIE	Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency
DATA Act	Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014
DEAR	DATA Act Evaluation and Approval Repository
EPA	U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
FY	Fiscal Year
OCFO	Office of the Chief Financial Officer
OIG	Office of Inspector General
OMB	Office of Management and Budget
Cover image: Graphic illustrating the EPA's DATA Broker System files going into
USASpending.gov. (EPA OIG image)
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* — * U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	18-P-0037
November 9, 2017
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At a Glance
Why We Did This Review
We performed this audit to
assess the completeness,
timeliness, quality and accuracy
of fiscal year (FY) 2017 second
quarter financial award data
submitted for publication on
USASpending.gov within the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA's) Office of the
Chief Financial Officer (OCFO),
and to assess the EPA's
implementation and use of the
governmentwide financial data
standards established by the
Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) and the
Treasury.
EPA Reported Its Fiscal Year 2017
Second Quarter Financial and Award Data
in Accordance With the DATA Act
What We Found
The EPA assessed the accuracy, completeness,
quality and timeliness of the FY 2017 second
quarter financial and award data submitted for
publication on USASpending.gov. The EPA also
implemented governmentwide financial data
standards established by OMB and the Treasury
The EPA complied with OMB Memorandum M-17-04 by certifying that it was in
compliance with OMB guidance in providing reasonable assurance that internal
controls support the reliability and validity of account-level and award-level data
reported on USASpending.gov.
The DATA Act requires
the EPA to report and
display accurate
financial and award data
on USASpending.gov.
The Digital Accountability and
Transparency Act of 2014
(DATA Act) requires the
Inspector General to review a
statistically valid sample of the
spending data submitted under
the act by the EPA and to
assess the completeness,
timeliness, quality and accuracy
of the data sampled and the
implementation and use of the
data standards.
This report addresses the
following:
• Operating efficiently and
effectively.
The EPA stated in its Data Act Assurance Statement and its DATA Act
Evaluation and Approval Repository Statement that, beginning in FY 2017,
the EPA processed financial transactions in accordance with the DATA Act
requirements. We noted that historical program activity and budget class levels
did not align with DATA Act reporting requirements, and therefore were not
being reported in accordance with OMB and Treasury guidance. However, the
DATA Act Evaluation and Approval Repository tool recently created by the EPA,
as discussed in the "Noteworthy Achievements" section below, resolved this
issue. Therefore, no recommendations are being made.
Noteworthy Achievements
The EPA recently created a tool known as the DATA Act Evaluation and
Approval Repository, which migrates required reporting data from EPA systems
by validating and submitting formatted files to the Treasury. Using the tool, the
EPA validated the data and generated the DATA Act files in the acceptable
format that were submitted through the Treasury's DATA Act Broker.
Send all inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391
or visit www.epa.gov/oia.
Listing of OIG reports.

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UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460
THE INSPECTOR GENERAL
November 9, 2017
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: EPA Reported Its Fiscal Year 2017 Second Quarter Financial and Award Data in
Accordance With the DATA Act
r-»	i "x t i n r*
This is our report on the subject audit conducted by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The project number for this audit was OA-FY17-0185.
This report represents the opinion of the OIG and does not necessarily represent the final EPA position.
The Office of Technology Solutions, within the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, oversees the
EPA's implementation of the DATA Act.
Action Required
This report contains no recommendations and you are not required to respond to this report. However, if
you submit a response, it will be posted on the OIG's public website, along with our memorandum
commenting on your response. Your response should be provided as an Adobe PDF file that complies
with the accessibility requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. The
final response should not contain data that you do not want to be released to the public; if your response
contains such data, you should identify the data for redaction or removal along with corresponding
justification.
FROM
Arthur A. Elkins Jr.
TO
David Bloom, Acting Chief Financial Officer
We will post this report to our website at www.epa.gov/oig.

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EPA Reported Its Fiscal Year 2017
Second Quarter Financial and Award Data
in Accordance With the DATA Act
18-P-0037
Table of C
Purpose		1
Background		1
Responsible Offices		2
Noteworthy Achievements		2
Scope and Methodology		3
Results of Audit		4
Agency Response		5
Appendices
A CIGIE DATA Act Letter	 6
B Distribution	 8

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Purpose
We audited the fiscal year (FY) 2017 second quarter financial and award data
under the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act),
which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) submitted for
publication on USASpending.gov. This included a review of the appropriation
account file, the object class and program activity file, and the award financial
file. Our audit was conducted to assess the completeness, timeliness, quality and
accuracy of the FY 2017 second quarter data submitted for publication on
USASpending.gov, and to assess the EPA's implementation and use within the
Office of Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) of the governmentwide financial data
standards established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and
Treasury.
Background
DATA Act
The DATA Act (P.L. 113-101), signed by the President on May 9, 2014,
Section 4, DATA Standards, requires federal agencies to report financial and
award data in accordance with the established governmentwide financial data
standards. In May 2015, the OMB and the Treasury published 57 data definition
standards and required federal agencies to report financial data in accordance with
these standards beginning January 2017. Once submitted, the data is to be
displayed on USASpending.gov for taxpayers and policy makers.
The DATA Act also requires the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of each
federal agency to review a statistically valid sample of the spending data
submitted by its federal agency and to submit to Congress a publicly available
report assessing the completeness, timeliness, quality and accuracy of the data
sampled and the implementation and use of the governmentwide financial data
standards by the federal agency.
OMB Guidance
OMB Memorandum M-15-12, Increasing Transparency of Federal Spending by
Making Federal Spending Data Accessible, Searchable, and Reliable, dated
May 8, 2015, the background section (page 1 of 8) provides guidance to federal
agencies on current reporting requirements pursuant to the Federal Funding
Accountability and Transparency Act, as well as new requirements per the DATA
Act.
OMB Management Procedures Memorandum 2016-03, Additional Guidance for
DATA Act Implementation: Implementing Data-Centric Approach for Reporting
Federal Spending Information, dated May 3, 2016 (page 1 of 8), provides
18-P-0037
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additional guidance to federal agencies on reporting federal appropriations
account summary-level and federal award-level data to USASpending.gov.
OMB Memorandum M-17-04, Additional Guidance for DATA Act Implementation:
Further Requirements for Reporting and Assuring Data Reliability, dated
November 4, 2016 (page 1 of 11), further specifies responsibilities for reporting
financial information for awards involving intragovernmental transfers, guidance
for reporting financial assistance award records containing personally identifiable
information, and guidance for agencies to provide the Senior Accountable Official
assurance over quarterly submissions to USASpending.gov.
Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency Strategy
The IG Guide to Compliance Under the DATA Act, dated February 27, 2017,
states that The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency
(CIGIE) identified a timing anomaly with oversight requirements in the
DATA Act. The DATA Act specified that the first OIG reports were due
November 2016, but federal agencies were not required to report spending data
until May 2017. To address this reporting anomaly, CIGIE did the following:
•	Encouraged the federal OIG Community to undertake DATA Act
"readiness reviews" at their respective agencies well in advance of the first
November 2017 report. On December 2, 2016, we issued Report No.
17-P-0050. Status of EPA's Implementation of the DATA Act.
•	Indicated that OIGs should provide Congress with their first required
report in November 2017, a 1-year delay from the statutory due date, with
two subsequent reports following on a 2-year cycle.
On December 22, 2015, CIGIE's chair issued a letter memorializing the strategy
and communicated it to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs, and the House Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform. That letter is in Appendix A.
Responsible Offices
The EPA's Office of Technology Solutions, within the OCFO, maintains
responsibility over EPA implementation of the DATA Act. Other EPA offices
involved in implementing the DATA Act include OCFO's Office of the
Controller and Office of Budget, the EPA's Office of Administration and
Resources Management, and the EPA's Office of Environmental Information.
18-P-0037
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Noteworthy Achievements
The EPA developed the DATA Act Evaluation and Approval Repository (DEAR)
tool as an application solution for the DATA Act. The DEAR tool serves as the
EPA's data quality management application for the DATA Act elements required
by OMB and Treasury. The DEAR tool extracts, transforms, prepares, fully
captures and accurately reports the DATA Act files (appropriations account file,
object class and program activity file, and award financial file) for submission to
the DATA Act Broker System.
Scope and Methodology
Our responsibility was to audit the spending data submitted under the DATA Act
by the EPA, and to submit to Congress and make publicly available a report
assessing the completeness, timeliness, quality and accuracy of the data and the
implementation and use of data standards by the EPA.
We conducted this audit from April through November 2017 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards, issued by the Comptroller
General of the United States. Those standards require that we plan and perform
the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis
for our conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence
obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on
our audit objectives.
We tested FY 2017, second quarter financial and award data submitted to the
DATA Act Broker System to assess the completeness, timeliness, quality
and accuracy of the data submitted for publication on USASpending.gov.
We used dollar unit sampling to select award financial transactions from a
universe/population of bankcard, contracts, grants and miscellaneous categories.
Scope Limitation of Data Reporting Issues
In planning and performing our audit, we assessed the award financial transaction
information in Compass Financials, the agency's accounting system. We did not
test all internal controls over Compass from which we obtained financial data, but
relied on internal control test work conducted during the EPA's FY 2016 financial
statement audit. The FY 2016 A-123 analysis did not identify any internal control
weaknesses related to the DATA Act.
In October 2017, the Treasury's Government-wide DATA Act Program
Management Office officials confirmed that they were aware that the DATA Act
Broker System currently extracts and reports inaccurately. A Treasury official
stated that the issue will be resolved once the DATA Act Information Model
Schema version 1.1 is implemented during fall 2017. We could not evaluate the
18-P-0037
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reasonableness of Treasury's planned corrective action because the Treasury's
implementation had not yet occurred.
Prior Audit Coverage
Prior EPA OIG Report No. 17-P-0050. Status of EPA 's Implementation of the
DATA Act, issued December 2, 2016, found that the EPA has taken steps to
implement the DATA Act. The EPA identified key risks to the DATA Act
implementation, such as linking award identification among the EPA's financial
and procurement systems; submitting complete data files to Treasury; timing
differences, data inconsistencies and reconciling data between the EPA internal
and external systems; and funding to support the consolidation and preparation of
agency data for reporting under the DATA Act. The EPA identified mitigations to
address these risks. Since that implementation plan was designed for the EPA to
meet the statutory deadline with a partial data submission, we had no
recommendations.
In addition, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued various reports
regarding the DATA Act:
•	As Reporting Deadline Nears, Challenges Remain That Will Affect Data
Quality (GAP-17-496). issued April 28, 2017.
•	Oversight Needed to Address Underreporting and Inconsistencies on
Federal Award Website (GAP-14-476). issued June 30, 2014.
•	Implementation of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency
Act of2006 (GAP-10-365). issued March 12, 2010.
Results of Audit
We audited the spending data submitted under the DATA Act by the EPA. We
found that the EPA assessed the completeness, quality, timeliness and accuracy of
the FY 2017 second quarter financial and award data submitted for publication on
USASpending.gov. From our work on the appropriation account file, object class
and program activity file, and award financial file, we found the following:
•	The EPA's appropriation account file included similar information in
PMB's SF-133 report on budget execution and budgetary resources. The
SF-133 is a quarterly report with information on the sources of budget
authority and the status of budgetary resources by individual fund or
appropriation.
•	The EPA adequately reconciled the appropriation account file and the object
class and program activity file. Also, the EPA's object class and program
activity file has the proper combination of program activities and object
classes, consistent with PMB Circular A-l 1, Preparation, Submission, and
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Budget Execution of the Budget. An object class is goods or services or
items purchased (such as supplies, rent or equipment); program activity
represents activity, project or other programmatic distinctions.
•	The EPA's award financial file's data reconciled to the object class and
program activity file, award and awardee procurement award and financial
assistance files, and additional awardee attribute file. The EPA's Data Act
Assurance Statement certified "the agency's compliance with OMB guidance
of providing reasonable assurance that our internal controls support the
reliability and validity of the agency account-level and award-level data."
•	The EPA implemented governmentwide financial data standards
established by OMB and Treasury for the FY 2017 second quarter
financial and award data. Although the EPA's historical program
activity and budget class levels did not align with the DATA Act
reporting requirements and were not in accordance with OMB and
Treasury guidance, the recent creation of the DEAR tool has resolved
this issue, and no recommendations are being made.
Agency Response
The EPA agreed with our report and did not provide written comments.
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Appendix A
CIGIE DATA Act Letter
Council of the
INSPECTORS GENERAL
on INTEGRITY and EFFICIENCY
December 22, 2015
The Honorable Ron Johnson
Chairman
The Honorable Thomas Carper
Ranking Member
Committee on Homeland Security
and Government Affairs
United States Senate Washington, D.C.
The Honorable Jason Chaffetz
Chairman
The Honorable Elijah Cummings
Ranking Member
Committee on Oversight Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Chairmen andRanking Members:
The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) recognizes and
appreciates your leadership on issues of Government transparency and accountability. In
particular, we believe the enactment last year of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of
2014 (DATA Act) will significantly improve the quality of Federal spending data available to
Congress, the public, and the accountability community if properly implemented. To make sure this
happens, the DATA Act provides for strong oversight by way of the Federal Inspectors General
and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In particular, the DATA Act requires a
series of reports from each to include, among other things, an assessment of the completeness,
timeliness, quality, and accuracy of data submitted by agencies under the DATA Act.
I am writing this letter on behalf of CIGIE to inform you of an important timing anomaly with the
oversight requirement for Inspectors General in the DATA Act. Your staffs have been briefed
on this timing anomaly, which affects the first Inspector General reports required by the DATA Act.
Specifically, the first Inspector General reports are due to Congress in November 2016. However,
the agencies we oversee are not required to submit spending data in compliance with the DATA Act
until May 2017. As a result, Inspectors General would be unable to report on the spending data
submitted under the Act, as this data will not exist until the following year. This anomaly would cause
the body of reports submitted by the Inspectors General in November 2016 to be of minimal use to the
public, the Congress, the Executive Branch, and others.
To address this reporting date anomaly, the Inspectors General plan to provide Congress with their
first required reports in November 2017, a one-year delay from the due date in statute, with subsequent
reports following on a two-year cycle, in November 2019 and November 2021. We believe that
moving the due dates back one year will enable the Inspector General to meet the intent of the
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oversight provisions in the DATA Act and provide useful reports for the public, the Congress, the
Executive Branch, and others.
Although we think the best course of action is to delay the Inspector General reports, CIGIE is
encouraging the Federal Inspector General Community to undertake DATA Act "readiness
reviews" at their respective agencies well in advance of the first November 2017 report. Through
a working group, CIGIE has developed guidance for these reviews. I am pleased to report that
several Inspectors General have already begun reviews at their respective agencies, and many
Inspectors General are planning to begin reviews in the near future. We believe that these reviews,
which are in addition to the specific oversight requirements of the Act, will assist all parties in helping
to ensure the success of the DATA Act implementation.
We have kept GAO officials informed about our plan to delay the first Inspector General reports for
one year, which they are comfortable with, and our ongoing efforts to help ensure early engagement
through Inspector General readiness reviews.
Should you or your staffs have any questions about our approach or other aspects of our
collective DATA Act oversight activities, please do not hesitate to contact me at (202) 514-3435.
Sincerely,
Michael E. Horowitz	- >
Chair, Council of the Inspectors General onlntegrity andEfficiency
Inspector General, U. S. Department of Justice
cc: The Honorable David Mader, Controller, OMB
The Honorable GeneDodaro, Comptroller General, GAO
18-P-0037
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Appendix B
Distribution
The Administrator
Chief of Staff
Chief of Staff for Operations
Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations
Chief Financial Officer
Agency Audit Follow-Up Coordinator
General Counsel
Associate Administrator for Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations
Associate Administrator for Public Affairs
Assistant Administrator for Administration and Resources Management
Associate Chief Financial Officer, Office of the Chief Financial Officer
Controller, Office of the Controller, Office of the Chief Financial Officer
Deputy Controller, Office of the Controller, Office of the Chief Financial Officer
Director, Office of Budget, Office of the Chief Financial Officer
Director, Office of Technology Solutions, Office of the Chief Financial Officer
Director, Financial Services Division, Office of the Chief Financial Officer
Director, Accounting and Cost Analysis Division, Office of the Controller, Office of the
Chief Financial Officer
Director, Business, Planning and Operations Division, Office of the Controller, Office of the
Chief Financial Officer
Audit Follow-Up Coordinator, Office of the Administrator
Audit Follow-Up Coordinator, Office of the Chief Financial Officer
Audit Follow-Up Coordinator, Office of Administration and Resources Management
18-P-0037
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