Management of Department of Energy–Sponsored Conferences Costing More Than $20,000
February 11, 2015
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February 11, 2015
Management of Department of Energy–Sponsored Conferences Costing More Than $20,000
Although the Department of Energy (Department) had made progress in the management of conference expenditures, more can be done to control cost and ensure that funds are spent appropriately. Specifically, our review identified accounting, documentation and justification issues that affected approximately one-third of the 151 conferences, held at a cost of about $4 million, in the greater than $20,000 cost category. Problems were also observed in all 16 of the FY 2013 conferences we reviewed, totaling about $3.3 million, in the greater than $100,000 category.
Our previous report on this matter, Conference Management at Selected Department Sites (DOE/IG-0913, June 2014), revealed that Department Program Offices inconsistently applied conference criteria, the Conference Management Tool was inaccurate, and Program officials failed to properly report and break down food costs. These issues occurred, at least in part, because management did not ensure conference decisions were based on established requirements. As of November 2014, three of six recommendations from this report were considered open, and the Department was in the process of implementing corrective actions. Based on our review, we believe that addressing the remaining open recommendations in this report should also help resolve the concerns we identified in our current review.
Topic: Management & Administration