A review of the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s spending data for Q2 of fiscal year 2017 revealed $1.9 billion of the department\u2019s transactions were not linked to their corresponding award-level transactions through unique identification numbers, one of several accuracy issues cited in a recent inspector general report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While acknowledging DHS is improving its data reconciliation procedures to reduce these misalignments, the IG determined the department needs to have greater oversight into the quality of data submitted by its component agencies under the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDHS\u2019 internal controls over its DATA Act processes were not sufficient to support the submission of accurate, complete and timely spending data for FY 2017\/Q2. Until DHS strengthens its existing controls and applies additional controls over its DATA Act processes, the quality and transparency of its published spending data remains questionable,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAlthough DHS directed each reporting component to develop and apply internal procedures to reconcile these and other types of data errors prior to submission, it did not ensure that the components complied with that directive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, the report said that because the National Protection and Programs Directorate, a subcomponent of DHS, did not have procedures in place to address known discrepancies in spending data, it could not assure DHS that such data was fully validated. DHS would then not be able to fully certify the accuracy of that data to the Department of Treasury\u2019s DATA Act Broker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, only the U.S. Secret Service had taken significant steps to develop a plan, assess risks and establish controls for its DATA Act program, according to the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the report, DHS\u2019 primary focus approaching the act\u2019s May 2017 deadline for submitting Q2 2017 financial data was to resolve the critical data issues that would have prevented them from meeting the deadline, and that misalignments in the data were not addressed until after the first submission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDespite its inability to align almost one quarter of its procurement obligations, DHS still certified that the data was accurate and complete. Because the Broker does not accept agency submissions without a SAO certification, to not certify would have resulted in DHS\u2019 failure to comply with DATA Act requirements,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The IG investigation found that nearly 64 percent of DHS\u2019 financial procurement and awards data was inaccurate with financial-related errors represented almost $1.7 million in DHS\u2019 total obligations for the quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The IG\u2019s methodology for testing, assuming that a transaction was incorrect if one attribute in that transaction did not match the source data, was disputed by DHS, which argued that comparing the total number of attributes to the number of erroneous attributes would result in an inaccuracy rate of 18 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The DHS IG made six recommendations for improving the accuracy of DHS DATA Act reporting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DHS disagreed with one of the six, arguing that Office of Management and Budget and Treasury awards and a clean audit opinion indicate that its spending data is of good quality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Homeland Security needs to achieve greater spending data accuracy, a recent DATA Act-mandated test of the department’s Q2 FY2017 procurement and financial award transactions found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":37643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":40,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,31,33,9,40],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2853],"class_list":["post-24797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight","category-watchdogs"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"BPOJWRLZLNGARAIH6D27DVDTAI","arc_canonical_url":"\/federal-oversight\/watchdogs\/2018\/01\/05\/ig-dhs-data-inaccurate-for-nearly-2b-in-transactions\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n