We evaluated the Bureau of Reclamation’s (USBR’s) oversight of its construction projects to supply water to American Indian tribes in rural areas. We found that USBR could improve oversight of these construction projects by tracking physical completion percentages, establishing individual project completion dates, standardizing oversight and documentation, and submitting a complete annual funding agreement to Congress. We included five recommendations to help USBR improve oversight and accountability of its tribal rural water supply construction projects.
USBR’s June 2, 2017 response to our draft report concurred with four of our recommendations and partially concurred with one. We consider Recommendation 1 partially resolved and not implemented; Recommendations 2, 3, and 4 resolved but not implemented; and Recommendation 5 resolved and implemented. We are referring the recommendations to the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget for tracking.