View PDF Document

Summary

We issued a letter to Chairman Jason Chaffetz and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding the status of our open audit recommendations. Specifically, the Chairman and Ranking Member requested: (1) the current number of open recommendations; (2) cumulative estimated cost savings associated with the current open recommendations; (3) specifics on the recommendations that could result in cost savings, including their dates and potential monetary benefits; (4) our three most important or urgent open recommendations; (5) summary of all closed investigations, evaluations, and audits that were not disclosed to the public since March 1, 2015; (6) total number of individuals referred by your office to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution and the total number of prosecutions in response; and (7) list and description of any instance in which the Department refused to provide, or otherwise delayed or restricted access to records or other information since March 1, 2015.

As of April 1, 2016, we have identified 555 open recommendations, which were included in 190 audit reports issued between July 18, 2007, and March 28, 2016. Of these, 35 recommendations (from 28 reports) carry an estimated monetary benefit or cost savings totaling over $1.54 billion.  We identified our three most important open recommendations based on their impact on safety, economy, or efficiency; documented vulnerabilities; and the ability of the Department to effect change in these programs or areas. We selected one recommendation from each of these reports: FAA Faces Significant Barriers To Safely Integrate Unmanned Aircraft Systems Into the National Airspace System, Weak Internal Controls for Collecting Delinquent Debt Put Millions of DOT Dollars at Risk, and Additional Efforts Are Needed To Ensure NHTSA’s Full Implementation of OIG’s 2011 Recommendations.