Pursuit's Take
OIG found that the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (OESE) audit followup process was not always effective. Specifically, we found that OESE did not close audits timely and did not adequately maintain documentation of audit followup activities. Between October 1, 2008 and September 30, 2013, OESE closed 86 external OIG audits. Of the 86 closed audits, 59 (69 percent) were closed more than 2 years after resolution and 34 (40 percent) were closed more than 5 years after resolution. The total of the monetary recommendations associated with the 86 audits was $587,490,310.
Further, OIG found that OESE did not always adequately maintain documentation of audit followup activities. OIG reviewed audit followup activities for a nonstatistical sample of 14 external OIG audits of OESE programs. For these 14 audits, OESE determined that 81 recommendations required corrective actions, to include $10,208,164 in monetary corrective actions. We found that OESE files did not adequately maintain documentation for 68 out of 81 recommendations (84 percent), to include monetary corrective actions totaling $7,967,097.