Office of Inspector General

The FY 2023 budget request for the Office of Inspector General is $48.4 million. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) uses independent and objective oversight to better NASA’s programs and operations.[1]

OIG Organizational Chart:

Source: NASA

Allocation for OIG’s 2023 budget is below:

  • “$40.2 million (83 percent) for personnel and related costs, including salaries, benefits, monetaryawards, and government contributions for Social Security, Medicare, health and life insurance,retirement, and the Thrift Savings Plan, which includes increased rates for retirement contributions;
    • Salaries include pay adjustments for civilian employees in 2023 (one quarter at +2.7 percent andthree quarters at +4.6 percent), plus the required additional 25 percent law enforcementavailability pay for OIG’s approximately 55 criminal investigators.
  • $3.4 million (7 percent) for the statutorily required annual audits of the Agency’s financial statementsand FISMA;
  • $0.7 million (1.5 percent) for employee travel, per diem, and related expenses;
  • $0.4 million (1 percent) for training and staff development; and
  • $3.7 million (7.5 percent) for operational procurements including equipment, vehicles, specialequipment for criminal investigators, transit subsidies, and information technology equipment uniqueto the OIG.”[2]

Highlights:

  • 83% of the total budget for OIG is made up of employee benefits, salaries, and other personnel related costs. This allocation needs a 4.6% increase in 2023 base pay for civilian and Law Enforcement (LEO) employees.[3]
  • An additional $800,000 was requested in this budget to perform the FISMA audit with a contracted private firm.[4]
  • Oversight for NASA’s IT systems will be prioritized by contracting a public accounting firm to conduct the FISMA FY 2022 audit. The funds for this will be available due to cost savings from lower than anticipated travel costs and salary lapse. This allows 3-4 full time equivalents to work on more important projects while prior year funding leaves space for NASA to hire two experienced IT auditors.[5]
  • The OIG received $500,000 of 2-year funding in Public Law 116-260, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 to assist with the follow through of the budget in line with NASA’s end-of-year close-out procedures. Additional breadth for OIG’s funding and improved resource planning would be a result of fully aligning the entire OIG’s appropriation with the rest of NASA. Because of this, the OIG requests two-year budget authority for total direct appropriations in FY 2023.[6]

Updated November 2022, by Jackie Johnson