Summary: In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the implementation of the Single Audit Act of 1984 to determine the: (1) extent to which state and local governments that receive direct federal financial assistance perform the required single audits; and (2) adequacy of federal initiatives to ensure that state and local governments completed the audits when required.
GAO found that: (1) 12,604 of the 13,181 state and local governments surveyed that received at least $100,000 in direct federal cash assistance complied with the reporting requirements to submit single audit reports for the first year under the act; (2) a Census Bureau survey showed an additional 3,000 governments that met the $100,000 threshold and planned to submit a single audit report; (3) 6,000 governments not included in the 13,181 surveyed submitted reports; and (4) about 36 percent of the 13,181 received over $100,000, while about 45 percent of the 6,000 received over $100,000. GAO also found that the Bureau had certain limitations which restricted its monitoring ability, specifically: (1) procedures which did not allow it to determine how much financial assistance governments received indirectly from other state and local governments; (2) a lack of data on recipients of noncash assistance and its value; and (3) its failure to monitor recipients that received between $25,999 and $100,000 in direct cash assistance. In addition, GAO found that the Bureau permitted on-line access of its database to other federal agencies to: (1) encourage the cooperative exchange of information on governments that should submit reports; (2) improve its database for monitoring purposes; and (3) reduce the impact of its system's limitations.
