NTIA Needs More Money for BTOP Oversight, IG Reports
The NTIA needs more money to police its broadband stimulus program, but the agency also must do a better job of monitoring the billions it has given out, the Commerce Department’s inspector general said. After handing out almost $4 billion in broadband grants, NTIA finds itself “responsible for overseeing a diverse portfolio of awards that will present several new challenges,” including months-long environmental assessments and grantees in government, nonprofit and for-profit groups, co-ops and Native American tribes, the IG said.
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NTIA has “taken an aggressive posture” on monitoring the Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program, but the agency is operating under a continuing spending resolution from Congress, which keeps spending at the same level as for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the IG wrote in Monday’s 28-page report. “The uncertainty regarding oversight funding … raises significant concerns about the adequacy of future BTOP oversight,” the report said. “The potential effects of reduced award monitoring include a decreased capability to minimize waste, fraud and abuse.”
Despite these funding limitations, NTIA hasn’t helped itself in monitoring, the IG said. Memoranda of understanding with outside agencies to help oversee the program have been “unclear” in their missions and scope, the IG report said. “These issues are of particular concern because NTIA has not demonstrated rigorous monitoring of the agreements,” the report stated. NTIA “does not have an oversight plan for the agreements with these other federal agencies” because NTIA officials “did not consider implementation of the agreements to be a high-risk area.”
NTIA staff also haven’t been trained properly on contractor-designed computer monitoring systems, leaving “a knowledge gap between the staff of the contractor that designed BTOP’s software systems and the NTIA staff who must maintain the systems,” the report said. Additionally, the agency’s “internal controls over professional development and training are not robust,” and NTIA is failing to file some of its crucial paperwork on time, the IG said.
The agency ought to develop “alternative approaches to monitoring and oversight” in the absence of proper funding and make sure its inter-agency agreements and monitoring procedures “are clearly documented and fully adhered to,” the IG wrote.
In their written response to the IG report, Commerce and NTIA officials acknowledged the importance of oversight but said the agency was already tightening its internal controls. Privately, NTIA officials said the key findings in Monday’s report involved the lack of funding for oversight.