Semiannual Report: Oct-Mar 2013

This semiannual report is issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC’s) Office of Inspector General (OIG) pursuant to the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended.  It summarizes the OIG’s activities and accomplishments for the period of October 1, 2012 through March 31, 2013.

During the reporting period the OIG issued six audit/evaluation products, and received 284 inquiries, of which 134 were charge-processing issues, 120 were Title VII complaints, and 30 were other investigative allegations.

Included among the OIG’s completed, newly initiated, and ongoing audit, evaluation and investigative projects are:

• Harper, Rains, Knight & Company, P.A. (HRK) conducted a performance audit of the EEOC’s charge card program which includes both purchase and travel charge cards. HRK identified weaknesses in several areas regarding non-compliance of charge card policies and procedures, and made recommendations regarding the development of policies and procedures to better oversee the program.

• The Urban Institute evaluated the EEOC’s performance measures in the Agency’s FY 2012–2016 Strategic Plan. The final report concluded that most of the measures contained in the current strategic plan are primarily process measures, not outcome measures, and the current measures do not cover the nation’s progress towards achieving the EEOC’s overarching goal: to reduce employment discrimination in the United States. The report recommends adopting a variety of performance measures associated with each of EEOC’s three strategic objectives. 

• Harper, Rains, Knight & Company, P.A. (HRK) audited the financial statements of the EEOC for FY 2012, and issued an unqualified opinion on the Agency’s FY 2012 financial statements. In its Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting, HRK noted two areas involving internal control and its operation that were considered to be significant deficiencies.  These included the lack of sufficient controls over supporting documentation for personnel expenses, and the lack of sufficient controls over financial reporting. 

• Clifton Gunderson LLP (CG) performed the OIG’s independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the Agency’s information security program. CG noted improvements were needed in the following areas of maintaining documentation for network access requests/approvals: implementing multi-factor authentication; maintaining documentation of acceptance and understanding of information security responsibilities; and maintaining incidence response policy to reflect all US-Cert categorization types. CG made several recommendations, to which EEOC management concurred.

• Ongoing investigations continue in several field offices involving the Federal Employee Compensation Act (FECA), misclassification of a position, and other matters.