Financial Management: Poor Internal Controls Expose Departments of Education toImproper Payments

摘要

On July 24, 2001, we testified before your subcommittee on our ongoing review ofthe Department of Education's payment processes and how the existing internal control weaknesses we have noted thus far make the department vulnerable to, and in some cases have resulted in, improper payments. This letter briefly summarizes our testimony and formalizes specific recommendations made to the Secretary of Education in our testimony. We performed our work from August 2000 through July 2001, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards as well as with investigative standards established by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency. Further details on our objectives, scope, and methodology are included in appendix I. Our testimony, which includes our detailed findings, is reprinted in appendix II. Our work has focused on three types of disbursements made from May 1998 through September 2000-grants and loans totaling $181.4 billion, third party drafts totaling $55 million, and government purchase card transactions totaling $22 million. The results of our work thus far in each of these areas is summarized below.