The headline count stayed flat while its contents changed
Nine recommendations related to Treasury’s consolidated-financial-statement preparation were open after the fiscal 2024 audit. During the fiscal 2025 audit, GAO closed three after corrective action, leaving six. GAO then made three new recommendations, returning the open total to nine.
The arithmetic—9 minus 3 plus 3 equals 9—shows why a flat backlog is not the same as no progress. It also shows why reporting only the total conceals newly identified risk.
| Step | Open count |
|---|---|
| Prior open recommendations | 9 |
| Closed after corrective action | −3 |
| Continuing prior recommendations | 6 |
| New recommendations | +3 |
| Current open total | 9 |
The new findings cover disclosure and access
GAO found that Treasury did not properly report legal contingencies in the draft consolidated statements, did not consistently prepare accurate and complete note disclosures and lacked adequate reports for managers to recertify user access to Planning Analytics.
Treasury concurred with all three new recommendations. The access finding matters because a recertification is only as reliable as the roles and permissions shown to the approving manager.
The governmentwide disclaimer has broader causes
GAO has been unable to express an opinion on the federal government’s accrual-based consolidated statements since the first audit for fiscal 1997. The reasons include multiple governmentwide material weaknesses and scope limitations.
It would be inaccurate to attribute that entire history to these three Treasury findings alone. Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget prepare the consolidated report, but underlying federal entities and intragovernmental reconciliation also drive the result.
Method and limits
What’s the Scoop With Broach reconstructed the recommendation ledger from GAO’s prior-open, closed and new counts and separated Treasury-specific deficiencies from the broader opinion limitation.
The report identifies increased risk of material error; it does not state that a specific published dollar balance was fraudulent or wrong.
Sources and further reading
GAO-26-109081, September 15, 2026 ↗
U.S. Treasury Building photograph and public-domain record ↗