United States Government Accountability Office Office of the Inspector General's System Review Report of the Corporation for National and Community Service Office of the Inspector General 2018

In 2019, Congress enacted the Payment Integrity Information Act (PIIA) to update required reporting on agencies’ improper payments. PIIA requires agencies to review and identify programs and activities that may be susceptible to significant improper payments, estimate the improper payments rates in agency programs, and report on their actions to reduce and recover those payments. The Inspector General of each agency assesses compliance with these requirements annually.AmeriCorps implemented corrective actions in FY 2021 that improved its compliance with PIIA reporting requirements.

Since Fiscal Year (FY) 2017, AmeriCorps has not obtained an audit opinion on its financial statements. In FY 2021, independent auditors found nine material weaknesses and one significant deficiency, resulting in a total of 73 recommendations. In addition, each of AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) annual Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) evaluations since FY 2017 concluded that AmeriCorps’ cybersecurity and privacy program is ineffective.

AmeriCorps’ security program has not been effective in accordance with Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) since Fiscal Year 2017. In order to determine its current status, AmeriCorps OIG engaged an independent certified public accounting firm to conduct an internal penetration test of AmeriCorps’ network. The independent auditors tested AmeriCorps’ network to evaluate the effectiveness of its information security program and to identify areas of weakness.

AmeriCorps has been unable to produce auditable financial statements for the last six years. This year, independent auditors again issued a disclaimer of opinion, reporting 12 material weaknesses and two significant deficiencies. Ten of the material weaknesses are recurring, four of them since FY 2017, five since FY 2018, and one since FY 2021. The auditors reported two new material weaknesses: (1) Knowledge Gap throughout Financial Management Operations and (2) Advances from Others. Further, the financial statements and accompanying notes were not in accordance with U.S.