Summary: As part of a management review of the Department of Transportation (DOT), GAO reviewed the agency's second-year efforts to evaluate its internal control and accounting systems under the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act of 1982 (FMFIA).
GAO found that: (1) although DOT made considerable progress in implementing FMFIA, there was no adequate basis to determine that the Department complied with the act's requirement to establish controls in accordance with Comptroller General standards; (2) the basis DOT used for reporting on the status of internal controls was inadequate; (3) a number of corrective actions still need to be taken before material weaknesses will be corrected; (4) further improvements are needed for evaluating the effectiveness of internal controls; and (5) further improvements are needed for meaningful analyses and for providing additional guidance and training for vulnerability assessments and internal control reviews. GAO also found that: (1) some accounting systems did not conform with Comptroller General requirements; (2) the Urban Mass Transportation Administration's systems provided inaccurate reports, lacked property accountability in some instances, and lacked adequate internal controls; (3) two out of three Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) locations did no testing of systems in operation; (4) FAA regional offices only considered Inspector General (IG) reports applicable to their own accounting operations and did not consider IG reports on accounting operations at other regional offices; and (5) until an agency's key accounting systems and internal controls over major programs are adequately evaluated and tested, the agency does not have an adequate basis to conclude that it is in compliance with FMFIA.
