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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Inspector General
At a Glance
08-P-0213
July 28, 2008
Why We Did This Review
The Office of Inspector General
(OIG) of the U.S. Environ-
mental Protection Agency
(EPA) is increasing its focus on
following up to determine if
audit report recommendations
are being implemented. The
objective of this audit was to
determine whether the
recommendations in the Fiscal
Years (FYs) 2000-2003 single
audit reports for the Oglala
Sioux Tribe (OST) had been
implemented.
Background
A single audit is one
conducted in accordance with
Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) Circular
A-133, which includes both
the entity's financial
statements and federal awards.
The FY 2003 single audit
report listed 43 repeat findings
that remained unresolved since
2000. The OIG questioned the
$2.5 million EPA awarded to
OST during the audited time
frame.
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/
20080728-08-P-0213.pdf
Catalyst for Improving the Environment
Oglala Sioux Single Audits - Corrective Actions Taken
but Improvements Needed in Resolving Costs
What We Found
EPA Region 8 continues to take actions to resolve the internal control findings in
the single audit reports. Region 8 identified OST as high risk, requested a
corrective action plan, and reviewed OST accounting documentation. However,
Region 8 did not monitor implementation of the corrective actions in the
Agency's Management Audit Tracking System (MATS) until all actions were
completed. As a result, the Agency was not accurately reporting on its status of
implementing corrective actions resulting from audit reports.
Region 8 did not obtain sufficient documentation to support resolving $2.5 million
in questioned costs. The documentation for resolving the questioned costs was not
from OST's official accounting system and did not reconcile to the costs claimed.
Region 8 did not resolve these issues before concluding that the Tribe did incur the
costs. Without sufficient documentation to support resolving questioned costs, the
Region cannot ensure those costs were allowable under the EPA grants.
What We Recommend
We recommend that the EPA Region 8 Regional Administrator:
1.	Track the remaining corrective action that OST has not implemented in
MATS, or submit a revised corrective action plan to the OIG for
evaluation.
2.	When resolving the FY 2004 and future single audits, (1) obtain sufficient
supporting documentation from the grantee's official accounting system to
support resolving questioned costs, (2) fully reconcile the supporting
documentation to the costs that were claimed, and (3) recover any
unsupported costs from the grantee.
Region 8 did not agree that the corrective actions needed to be tracked in MATS
and believes it took sufficient action to address the questioned costs. We
acknowledge that Region 8 is continuing to work with OST to improve financial
management, but EPA policy requires that corrective actions be tracked in MATS.
In response to our draft report, Region 8 obtained from OST additional
information to support the questioned costs. In the future, Region 8 needs to
ensure costs are fully supported before making its final determination.

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