Finding 558935 (2024-010)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY: 2024-010 Controls over Suspension and Debarment Fiscal year finding initially occurred: 2024 Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund (21.029) Criteria Federal regulation requires the Government to verify vendors are not suspended, debarred or otherwise excluded from doing business with the federal government prior to the Government doing business with them. Condition The Government failed to verify applicable vendors were not suspended, debarred or otherwise excluded from doing business with the federal government prior to the Government doing business with them. Cause The Government did not have internal control policies and procedures in place to ensure that all vendors were verified prior to doing business with them for services funded with federal government grants. Effect Failure to verify vendors are allowed to do business with the Government could lead to non-compliance. Context A sample of twelve vendors was selected from a population of twenty vendors. The testing determined that two of the vendors had not been verified by the Government prior to doing business with them. Our sample was a non-statistical sample. Recommendation The Government should review their established controls, policies and procedures to ensure that the verification of vendors is done prior to doing business with them. Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Action The Government agrees with this finding. Purchasing is normally alerted to verify suspension and debarment status when PO’s are issued in designated federal grant funds. However, we have a few departments that do not report grants in separate funds. If these departments do not identify that a federal grant is the funding source when initiating the procurement process, then Purchasing is not aware that the verifications need to be made. We will review the documentation requirements with the appropriate departments so that purchases made with grant funds in these departments are properly identified. We do not expect this finding to reoccur.