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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Inspector General
At a Glance
20-P-0126
March 31, 2020
Why We Did This Project
The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's Office of
Inspector General performed
this audit to determine:
•	Whether the EPA complied
with Grants Oversight and
New Efficiency Act
requirements (Pub. L. 114-
117) by timely submitting
information about expired
grant awards to Congress
and the U.S. Department of
Health and Human
Services.
•	The effectiveness of the
EPA's management of and
accountability for the timely
closeouts of grant awards.
In 2016, Congress enacted
the GONE Act to bring greater
efficiency, accountability, and
oversight to grant award
administration. In addition,
EPA policy provides that
90 percent of grant awards
ending in a fiscal year should
be closed by the end of the
next fiscal year and 99 percent
should be closed by the end of
the second fiscal year.
This report addresses the
following:
• Operating efficiently and
effectively.
Address inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391 or
OIG WEBCOMMENTS@epa.gov.
List of OIG reports.
EPA Did Not Accurately Report Under the Grants
Oversight and New Efficiency Act and Needs to Improve
Timeliness of Expired Grant Closeouts
What We Found
The EPA complied with the GONE Act by timely
submitting the required information to Congress
and the Department of Health and Human
Services. However, the EPA reported a count of
expired grant awards that was not accurate.
This inaccuracy occurred because the EPA's
Office of Grants and Debarment did not follow
the cutoff date requirement of September 30,
2017. As a result, the EPA provided Congress with incorrect information that
could affect Congress' decision-making.
In addition, the EPA needs to improve the timeliness of its grant closeouts. In
fiscal year 2018, the EPA overall did not meet the one-year closeout metric, and
not all EPA regions met the two-year closeout metric. The EPA did not enforce
its requirement that underperforming regions implement grant closeout
strategies, which would help address timeliness issues. Also, EPA regions
delayed some grant closeouts for several years because they did not have a
specific mechanism to escalate difficult cases to the Office of Grants and
Debarment. Because of these closeout challenges, as of September 6, 2019,
the EPA's undisbursed balances for grant awards that expired on or before
September 1, 2018, totaled approximately $8.3 million.
Late closeouts diminish the EPA's ability to achieve efficiencies within its grant
program, as they require staffs time and effort that could be used to manage
active grant awards. In addition, undisbursed balances for expired grant awards
represent funds that could be put to better use to achieve environmental and
public health goals.
Recommendations and Planned Agency Corrective Actions
We recommend that the assistant administrator for Mission Support (1) submit
corrections for the GONE Act reporting, (2) establish controls to verify that
accurate information is submitted in future reporting, (3) implement controls to
obtain grant closeout strategies when regions are not meeting the Agency's
performance metrics, and (4) implement a policy to escalate grant closeouts that
have been delayed for one year or longer to the Office of Grants and Debarment.
The EPA agreed with Recommendations 1 and 2 and provided acceptable
planned corrective actions. We consider those recommendations resolved with
corrective actions pending. The Agency did not provide acceptable corrective
actions to address Recommendations 3 and 4, and we consider these
recommendations unresolved.
As of September 2019, the
EPA had $8.3 million in
undisbursed balances for
grant awards that expired
one year or more prior.
These funds could have
been used to achieve EPA
environmental goals.

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