Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government


Book Description

Policymakers and program managers are continually seeking ways to improve accountability in achieving an entity's mission. A key factor in improving accountability in achieving an entity's mission is to implement an effective internal control system. An effective internal control system helps an entity adapt to shifting environments, evolving demands, changing risks, and new priorities. As programs change and entities strive to improve operational processes and implement new technology, management continually evaluates its internal control system so that it is effective and updated when necessary. Section 3512 (c) and (d) of Title 31 of the United States Code (commonly known as the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA)) requires the Comptroller General to issue standards for internal control in the federal government.




Government Auditing Standards - 2018 Revision


Book Description

Audits provide essential accountability and transparency over government programs. Given the current challenges facing governments and their programs, the oversight provided through auditing is more critical than ever. Government auditing provides the objective analysis and information needed to make the decisions necessary to help create a better future. The professional standards presented in this 2018 revision of Government Auditing Standards (known as the Yellow Book) provide a framework for performing high-quality audit work with competence, integrity, objectivity, and independence to provide accountability and to help improve government operations and services. These standards, commonly referred to as generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS), provide the foundation for government auditors to lead by example in the areas of independence, transparency, accountability, and quality through the audit process. This revision contains major changes from, and supersedes, the 2011 revision.




Government Auditing Standards


Book Description

Newly revised in 2011. Contains the auditing standards promulgated by the Comptroller General of the United States. Known as the Yellow Book. Includes the professional standards and guidance, commonly referred to as generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS), which provide a framework for conducting high quality government audits and attestation engagements with competence, integrity, objectivity, and independence. These standards are for use by auditors of government entities and entities that receive government awards and audit organizations performing GAGAS audits and attestation engagements.




Federal Information System Controls Audit Manual (FISCAM)


Book Description

FISCAM presents a methodology for performing info. system (IS) control audits of governmental entities in accordance with professional standards. FISCAM is designed to be used on financial and performance audits and attestation engagements. The methodology in the FISCAM incorp. the following: (1) A top-down, risk-based approach that considers materiality and significance in determining audit procedures; (2) Evaluation of entitywide controls and their effect on audit risk; (3) Evaluation of general controls and their pervasive impact on bus. process controls; (4) Evaluation of security mgmt. at all levels; (5) Control hierarchy to evaluate IS control weaknesses; (6) Groupings of control categories consistent with the nature of the risk. Illus.




Yellow Book: Government Auditing Standards


Book Description

Do you perform engagements in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS) as presented in the Yellow Book? This book provides an excellent baseline of information for accountants to better understand governmental auditing foundations, ethics, general audit standards, financial audit standards, attestation engagement standards, and fieldwork and reporting standards for performance audits. It is essential that all auditors planning and conducting audits in accordance with GAGAS understand and discern these concepts and standards in executing their responsibilities. In addition to a chapter covering the key points in a Uniform Guidance compliance audit, this book also includes content from AICPA Guide Government Auditing Standards and Single Audits related to a Uniform Guidance compliance audit, including appendixes for example auditor's reports and sampling guidance. This book will prepare you to do the following: Identify the types of engagements that are performed under Government Auditing Standards. Recognize Yellow Book requirements related to independence, peer review, and more. Identify the additional requirements for performing a financial audit under GAGAS. Recognize the additional GAGAS reporting requirements for financial audits. Recall the requirements for performing attestation engagements and performance audits under the Yellow Book.




GAO's Congressional Protocols


Book Description




The Pig Book


Book Description

The federal government wastes your tax dollars worse than a drunken sailor on shore leave. The 1984 Grace Commission uncovered that the Department of Defense spent $640 for a toilet seat and $436 for a hammer. Twenty years later things weren't much better. In 2004, Congress spent a record-breaking $22.9 billion dollars of your money on 10,656 of their pork-barrel projects. The war on terror has a lot to do with the record $413 billion in deficit spending, but it's also the result of pork over the last 18 years the likes of: - $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa - $102 million to study screwworms which were long ago eradicated from American soil - $273,000 to combat goth culture in Missouri - $2.2 million to renovate the North Pole (Lucky for Santa!) - $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in California - $1 million for ornamental fish research Funny in some instances and jaw-droppingly stupid and wasteful in others, The Pig Book proves one thing about Capitol Hill: pork is king!




Review of the Department of Energy's Plans for Disposal of Surplus Plutonium in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant


Book Description

In 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued an Interim Report evaluating the general viability of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration's (DOE-NNSA's) conceptual plans for disposing of 34 metric tons (MT) of surplus plutonium in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a deep geologic repository near Carlsbad, New Mexico. It provided a preliminary assessment of the general viability of DOE-NNSA's conceptual plans, focused on some of the barriers to their implementation. This final report addresses the remaining issues and echoes the recommendations from the interim study.







Concentration of Maxima and Fundamental Limits in High-Dimensional Testing and Inference


Book Description

This book provides a unified exposition of some fundamental theoretical problems in high-dimensional statistics. It specifically considers the canonical problems of detection and support estimation for sparse signals observed with noise. Novel phase-transition results are obtained for the signal support estimation problem under a variety of statistical risks. Based on a surprising connection to a concentration of maxima probabilistic phenomenon, the authors obtain a complete characterization of the exact support recovery problem for thresholding estimators under dependent errors.