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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	16-P-0081
^	\ Office of Inspector General	January 7,2016
ISIS/

At a Glance
Why We Did This Audit
On May 11, 2012, the Office of
Management and Budget
issued Memorandum M-12-12,
Promoting Efficient Spending to
Support Agency Operations.
It calls for agencies to ensure
that conference expenses are
appropriate, necessary and
managed in a manner that
minimizes expenses to
taxpayers. M-12-12 and Public
Law 113-76, Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2014, set
forth oversight and reporting
requirements for agencies with
conferences that cost over
$100,000.
In light of this scrutiny over
conference spending, the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), Office of
Inspector General (OIG),
sought to determine whether
the EPA's internal controls and
conference oversight ensure
that conference expenses are
appropriate and reported
accurately.
This report addresses the
following EPA goal or
cross-agency strategy:
• Embracing EPA as a
high-performing
organization.
Send all inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391
or visit www.epa.gov/oia.
EPA's Tracking and Reporting of Its
Conference Costs Need Improvement
What We Found
The EPA established internal controls to report
conferences both publicly and to the OIG as
required by M-12-12 and Public Law 113-76.
However, we found improvements are needed
to address the following:
Accurate data on conference
costs will provide the EPA
with the information it needs
to be more efficient in how
funds are spent.
•	We found $6,916 of inappropriate expenses attributed to two conferences
out of the $985,851 of expenses reviewed for eight conferences.
•	The EPA required the use of conference project codes to track and
monitor conference spending, but this did not always occur.
•	Conference costs were underreported.
•	Two conferences totaling $350,782 were in the EPA conference spending
tool but were not reported publicly as required.
•	Sixty-four percent of the 227 fiscal year 2014 conferences were reported
late or not reported to the OIG as required. Two of the eight conferences
sampled were not reported to the OIG at all.
Addressing these issues will result in more accurate reporting on types of costs
for conferences and allow the EPA to better analyze costs and identify
efficiencies.
Recommendations and Planned Corrective Actions
We recommend that the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) provide
additional guidance or training on how to identify unallowable conference costs,
use correct conference project codes, identify all conference costs in the financial
system, report all conference costs paid with EPA funds, and classify
conferences properly. We also recommend that OCFO work with program offices
to identify EPA Form 5170A cost reporting issues and revise the form as needed.
The OCFO agreed with all recommendations and provided planned corrective
actions with milestone dates. When implemented, the corrective actions should
address the recommendations. The recommendations are considered open with
agreed-to-corrective actions pending.
Noteworthy Achievements
The OCFO has proactively taken steps to improve the conference spending tool
for conference reporting. In addition, refresher training sessions were held to
address recent changes to the conference spending tool as well as concerns
raised by the OIG during this audit.
Listing of OIG reports.

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