The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act) requires Federal agencies to submit quarterly financial and award data for publication on USASpending.gov. The Office of Management and Budget and Department of Treasury established standards for Federal agencies to use 57 data elements in reporting its financial and award information. The DATA Act also requires the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of each Federal agency to audit a statistically valid sample of the data elements that support the data submitted by its Federal agency. Lastly, the OIG is required to submit a publicly available report to Congress assessing the completeness, accuracy, timeliness, and quality of the data elements sampled; and the implementation and use of the Government‐wide financial data standards by the Federal agency.
The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) was not in compliance with the DATA Act requirements. Its submission of the CNCS’s Fiscal Year 2019 quarter 1 financial and award data to USASpending.gov was not complete as it relates to financial and grant award data elements supporting the submission. CNCS’s financial data records contained errors in certain data elements, as some were incomplete, inaccurate or did not meet required reporting schedules. We also continued to observe internal control issues and errors that CNCS needs to address to improve the quality of its data and comply with DATA Act requirements. CNCS management concurred with our recommendations to improve those internal control deficiencies.