Publicly Released: September 29, 2023
We performed the procedures described in the Enclosure to this document. These procedures were agreed to by the Chief Financial Officer and the Inspector General of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). We performed these procedures solely to assist in assessing the reasonableness of the employee withholdings and employer contributions that the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) reported on Standard Form 2812, “Report of Withholdings and Contributions for Health Benefits, Life Insurance, and Retirement,” for the pay periods ending August 27, 2022; January 28, 2023; and February 25, 2023. We also performed these procedures to assist OPM in assessing the reasonableness of the amounts reported in the Supplemental Semiannual Headcount Reports as of September 2022 and March 2023. The reports submitted to OPM by DFAS included information for the following entities listed in Appendix A of Office of Management and Budget Bulletin No. 22-01, “Audit Requirements for Federal Financial Statements.”
- Department of Defense (DoD)
- Department of Energy (DoE)
- Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
- Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
We randomly selected a sample of 315 out of 1.3 million employees from the January 28, 2023 pay period from 11 DFAS payroll data files. We compared the sample of 315 employees’ pay and withholdings and agency contributions in the Defense Civilian Pay System (DCPS) to the documentation in the employees’ Official Personnel Files (OPFs). Of the 315 OPFs, 180 represented DoD employees, 45 represented DoE employees, 45 represented HHS employees, and 45 represented VA employees.
We performed the agreed-upon procedures to review the OPFs of DoD and VA employees. Auditors from the DoE and HHS Offices of Inspector General (OIG) performed the agreed-upon procedures to review OPFs of DoE and HHS employees, respectively. We believe the evidence obtained during the reviews provides a reasonable basis for our conclusions based on our attestation objective.
We performed the agreed-upon procedures in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards, which incorporate financial audit and attestation standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The sufficiency of these procedures is solely the responsibility of the OPM Chief Financial Officer and the OPM Inspector General. Consequently, we make no representation regarding the sufficiency of the procedures either for the purpose of this report or for any other purpose.
We were not engaged to express an opinion on whether the health benefits, life insurance, and retirement contributions and withholdings, or the enrollment information submitted by DFAS to OPM were reasonable and accurate. Accordingly, we did not conduct such an examination, nor did we express such an opinion. Had we performed additional procedures, other matters might have come to our attention that we would have reported to you. We provided a discussion draft of this report to the entities listed in the transmittal memorandum. None of the responses to the discussion draft report affected the accuracy of the report or required significant changes to the report.
This report is intended solely for the information and use of the OPM Chief Financial Officer and OPM Inspector General and is not intended to be used by those who have not agreed to the procedures or have not taken responsibility for the sufficiency of the procedures for their purposes.