The Government Accountability Office is urging the Department of Energy to provide more details on how its nuclear weapons and cleanup programs handle federal funds carried over from prior-year budgets.
At the end of fiscal 2021 the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) had about $3.2 billion in total carryover balances, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) about $10.9 billion, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in highlights of a new report Monday.
The GAO has been looking at the issue for years and said less than 2% of the $14.2 billion carried over in the DOE weapons complex was appropriated more than 5 years ago, “indicating that EM and NNSA have generally ensured that older funds were spent before newer funds,” the congressional watchdog said.
Most money appropriated to EM and NNSA to remain available for obligation “until they are expended, or costed,” GAO notes. The bigger issue is the “un-costed” on unspent balances, amounting to a combined $3.5 billion for EM and NNSA, mostly for line-item constructed projects.
Factors such as continuing budget resolutions or larger-than-requested appropriations, can often explain an excess balance, GAO said in its report. But sometimes these excess funds can be due to “unanticipated changes in work scope or program execution challenges or delays,” GAO said.
Upon occasion, EM and NNSA sometimes “reprogram” funds to areas of more immediate need, or reduce future year budget requests, GAO said.
Overall, the two DOE weapons complex branches lack a detailed process to assess or justify unspent balances, “so it is unclear whether the agencies consistently determine that balances in excess of thresholds are warranted,” the GAO said.
To fix this, the GAO laid out a series of recommendations to be implemented by DOE’s chief financial officer in collaboration with EM and NNSA.
