Policies

We determined that FEMA’s policies are not sufficient enough to prohibit unaccredited, unlicensed, unregistered, and non-state approved non-profit schools from receiving Public Assistance funds.  We made one recommendation for the FEMA Assistant Administrator for the Recovery Directorate to strengthen its policies and guidelines pertaining to non-profit schools eligibility for Public Assistance.  FEMA agreed with our finding and recommendation, and will take corrective action to resolve the recommendation by February 28, 2018; therefore, we consider the recommendation resolved and open.

TSA Office of Inspection Accountability Act of 2015 (Public Law 114-53), required us to review the Federal Air Marshal Service’s (FAMS’) policies and procedures for identifying misuse of Government resources, as well as the administration of FAMS’ code of conduct or integrity policies with respect to instances of misconduct. We incorporated this requirement into our ongoing department-wide audit of conduct and discipline, which seeks to determine whether DHS and its components have sufficient processes and procedures to address conduct issues. We determined that FAMS has sufficient policies and procedures to establish expectations for appropriate conduct, identify misuse of government resources, and address misconduct allegations. The report contains no recommendations.

The objective of this review was to determine whether the United States Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) was complying with applicable policies.  However, significant issues with the agency’s case management system prevented us from making substantive observations about compliance with investigative policies.  We also noted issues with outdated policies, an absence of a Privacy Impact Assessment, poor training records management, and inconsistent documentation of finalized investigations.  CGIS employees voiced concerns with trust in senior leadership as well as questionable hiring practices, and articulated a need for more resources.  We made 32 recommendations to address the findings of our review and CGIS concurred with all of them.