Views of Responsible Officials: Management concurs with the finding. During FY2025, the organization experienced significant disruption related to Federal stop-work orders and associated cost-reduction measures, including staff terminations and the discontinuation of certain legacy systems during th...
Views of Responsible Officials: Management concurs with the finding. During FY2025, the organization experienced significant disruption related to Federal stop-work orders and associated cost-reduction measures, including staff terminations and the discontinuation of certain legacy systems during the transition and integration of operations with Global Communities. As a result, for some employees in the audit sample—particularly those who separated from the organization prior to the FY2025 attestation cycle—management was unable to retrieve employee-signed conflict of interest attestations for the immediately preceding period because the systems and files used to capture and retain those acknowledgments were no longer accessible, and responsible personnel were no longer employed. Management notes that, for a portion of the employee population, the FY2025 ethics training included a conflicts of interest section requiring employee acknowledgment; however, system limitations affected the ability to produce individual, employee-named attestations for all sampled employees in a format suitable for audit evidence. Planned Corrective Actions: Following the operational integration with Global Communities, management is strengthening controls over conflict of interest compliance by: (1) requiring conflict of interest acknowledgment at onboarding and on a periodic basis thereafter through a standardized process; (2) maintaining a centralized tracking mechanism to monitor completion status; (3) retaining documentation in a centralized repository/personnel record to ensure retrievability; and (4) performing periodic monitoring to confirm completion and retention across headquarters and field locations. These actions are intended to improve documentation, transparency, and ongoing compliance with conflict of interest requirements and standards of conduct.