^£DS7X • JL v I®/ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General At a Glance 18-B-0228 August 6, 2018 Why We Did This Project The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this internal control review to determine whether criminal investigators in the OIG's Office of Investigations properly record Law Enforcement Availability Pay (LEAP) hours in compliance with federal requirements and OIG policies and procedures. Criminal investigators are provided premium pay or LEAP for being available for unscheduled duty beyond their regular 40-hour work week based on the needs of the employing agency. To earn LEAP, investigators must average, on an annual basis, 2 hours of unscheduled duty per regular work day. The OIG's Office of Investigations uses the Project Management Actuals module to track LEAP hours and calculate annual averages for each investigator. This report addresses the following: • Internal control review. OIG Office of Investigations' Records Demonstrate Compliance with Law Enforcement Availability Pay Requirements What We Found We found that criminal investigators in the OIG's Office of Investigations properly recorded LEAP hours in compliance with federal requirements and established OIG policies. Additionally, we verified that the investigators' 2017 LEAP certifications were adequately supported, and that investigators worked an average of 2 hours of unscheduled duty per regular work day as required by federal requirements. The 2017 LEAP certifications from criminal investigators in the OIG's Office of Investigations were fully supported. Two issues impacted LEAP recordkeeping and the annual certification process in the Office of Investigations: • Additional programming is needed for the Project Management Actuals module to accurately calculate the average LEAP time for investigators. • Supervisors did not approve timesheets within OIG-required timeframes, and investigators did not correctly record direct excludable time (hours that do not count as part of the regular work day) in their timesheets, resulting in errors in their average LEAP calculations. Recommendations and Planned Corrective Actions We recommend that the Deputy Inspector General decide by September 30, 2018, to allocate resources to complete the reprogramming associated with LEAP calculations in the Project Management Actuals module. We also recommend that the Deputy Inspector General enforce compliance by requiring Office of Investigations' personnel to submit and approve timesheets within the required timeframes. Further, we recommend that the Office of Investigations revise its LEAP procedures to require specific dates for submitting and approving annual certifications. Send all inquiries to our public affairs office at (202) 566-2391 or visit www.epa.gov/oia. Listing of OIG reports. On June 20, 2018, the OIG Office of Management agreed to allocate the necessary resources to complete the programming needed for LEAP calculations. The programming is estimated to be completed by March 31, 2019. The Office of Investigations agreed to provide training to its investigators, and have supervisors assess the timeliness of timesheet submission as part of the mid-year and year-end performance evaluation processes. All corrective actions will be completed by October 31, 2019. The Office of Investigations also agreed to update its policy to require the submission of annual certifications by November 30 of each year. The policy will be updated by January 31, 2019. ------- |