Junior Specialist

 
Company Overview
Crisis1, (www.crisis1.com), is a Center for Veterans Enterprise (CVE) verified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) founded in 2007 to deliver executive-level expertise and solutions to federal and private sector clients. Crisis1 offers a range of consulting services, all designed to help federal agencies achieve their goals.

Job Summary
The Junior Analyst will provide Support to CISA’s internal control assessment activities in accordance with FMFIA, DHS FAA, OMB Circular A-123, GAO FAM, the TFM, and applicable DHS internal control guidance. The Contractor shall also support the implementation of the requirements of the DHS IT Compliance Framework provided in DHS 4300A Sensitive Systems Policy and Handbook, or other applicable DHS guidance, for CISA’s financial systems. The contractor shall provide corrective action planning and remediation support, to include providing direct implementation guidance and assistance, for internal controls over reporting, operations, and Federal Financial Management Systems conformance.

Responsibilities and Duties
•    Assist with assessing areas of control identified by management, GAO, or the OIG that may impact the reliability of reporting, efficiency and effectiveness of operations, and compliance with laws and regulations.

•    Assist the performance of internal control assessments for both activity-level and entity-level controls by performing walkthroughs of business processes, documenting process narratives and related flow charts, and assessing their design effectiveness, consistent with audit and accounting professional standards. This includes evaluating key controls versus processes and identifying and evaluating general ledger impacts of transactions.

•    Assist with evaluating the operating effectiveness of key controls deemed to be designed effectively. Controls are tested to ensure they meet information processing objectives and related financial statement assertions; are functioning properly to mitigate risks of misstatements in the financial reports; and support management's financial reporting representations. This requires an understanding of the relevant transaction and general ledger impact of those transactions. In addition, controls are tested to ensure they support control objectives and assertions for effectiveness and efficiency of operations and comply with applicable laws and regulations.

•    Assist with developing, implementing, and conducting sound audit approaches and sampling methodologies in accordance with Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards and Generally Accepted Auditing Standards.

•    Assist with assessing and strengthening internal controls relating to CISA’s operations that have a financial impact, including but not limited to bank cards (fleet, purchase, and travel), conferences, and additional high-risk operations as identified by management.

•    Assist with the evaluation, assessment, classification, and aggregation of internal control deficiencies identified during the testing process. This work involves determining the significance of each deficiency by assessing the magnitude and likelihood of resulting potential misstatements. Based on the assessment, a deficiency or group of deficiencies are classified as material weaknesses, reportable conditions/significant deficiencies, or control deficiencies. Aggregate the internal control position in accordance with auditing and internal controls standards and guidance to support the Secretary's year-end Internal Control Assurance Statements.

•    Assist with implementation of the requirements of DHS 4300A Sensitive Systems Policy and Handbook. Document, assess, and guide the remediation of deficiencies in financial system controls and processes that support data quality and security, in accordance with the Federal Information System Controls Audit Manual (FISCAM), DHS 4300A Sensitive Systems Policy and Handbook, FFMIA, and other applicable guides. Provide expert information technology control guidance to support the government in the design, implementation, and business process integration of controls necessary for successful remediation of deficiencies.

•    Assist with evaluating results of internal and external assessments performed over CISA service providers and the impact on CISA’s control environment. Under government supervision, assist process owners by identifying service providers, documenting service provider roles and responsibilities, and directly guiding CISA service provider relationship manager personnel through effective risk assessments of service provider controls and related CISA controls. Utilize results of service provider risk assessment evaluations to design and present to the government recommended solutions to remediate deficiencies.

•    Assist with analyzing new regulatory requirements, and design and execute an implementation strategy.

•    Assist with evaluating improper payments to comply with improper payment laws and requirements.

•    Assist with evaluating the accuracy and completeness of system reports, data outputs, and other documents used to inform a control activity, a decision point, or a report.

•    Assist with briefing internal control assessment conclusions to the responsible process owners and CISA management, to include but not limited to the CFO, Deputy CFO, and Financial Management leaders.

•    Assist with the development of CISA-wide MAPs, or corrective action plans, to resolve material weaknesses, significant deficiencies, and control deficiencies identified by auditors, management, and other entities to satisfy the requirements stipulated by the DHS requirements including but not limited to the following topics: Control Deficiency Identification, Issue Description, Financial Statement and Management Control Assertions, Mission Link, Root Causes, Key Strategies, Key Performance Measures, Resources Required, Verification and Validation (V&V), Risks and Impediments, Dependencies, Milestones, and Critical Milestones with Due Dates and Status.

•    Assist process owners with developing recommendations and remediation activities under Government supervision, wherever appropriate. Significant areas requiring remediation include Property Management, Budgetary Resources Management, Financial Reporting, Payment Management, Grants Management, Human Resources and Payroll Management, Information Technology and Security, DATA Act and Entity Level Controls. As additional assessment results are available, new significant areas will require remediation.

•    Assist with other risk areas as identified by DHS or CISA that may have a material impact on CISA’s ability to carry out its financial management and internal control mission.

•    Track, monitor, and manage DHS internal control assessment tasks as assigned on DHS Risk Management and Assurance’s (RM&A) task system.

•    Provide professional project management services to enable the government to plan, implement timely, monitor, and report accurately on the status of assessments, remediation activities, and deliverables to DHS. Manage and oversee daily remediation activities, assist process owners with developing effective solutions and developing those solutions into appropriate level project milestones, track action items from remediation meetings, and provide status information and reports to proactively identify remediation challenges and status reports to executive leadership.

•    Assist CISA by providing technical expertise related to data analytics and process automation at a level in line with reasonable federal financial audit and accounting professional standard. These services shall include:

•    Design and document an internal control testing methodology using data analytics. Develop data analytics in a software platform to implement the design. The recommended internal control program must continue to support DHS requirements, comply with OMB A- 123, and advance DHS’ goals of maintaining a clean financial statement audit opinion and obtaining a clean internal control over financial reporting opinion.

•    Design, develop, and implement data analytics to improve and remediate internal controls and data quality across business processes.

•    Ensure the recommended data analytics methodology is financial statement audit-tested and based on the latest best practices gleaned from federal financial statement audit engagements. The methodology will include the procedures used to verify data sets and documentation of identified limitations or risks to the data sets, methods for reconciling missing or inconsistent information initially provided, follow-up procedures employed, and method to update data analytic scripts or reports.

•    Operate and maintain existing data analytic scripts designed in Diligent Audit Command Language (ACL). The Contractor’s operation and maintenance of existing data analytic scripts includes revising the logic and data analytic reports to identify potential instances of data anomalies to include but not limited to non-compliance with CISA’s business processes, operational inefficiencies, and fraud or abuse.

•    At the discretion and direction of management, design new data analytic scripts and reports in Diligent ACL or a software solution of equal or greater capability that the contractor can integrate into existing CISA IT environment. Through analytics, the Contractor will collect, classify, analyze and interpret data to reveal patterns, anomalies, key variables and relationships. The new data analytics will conform to the overall data analytics methodology, meeting the objective of maturing CISA’s control environment, which supports DHS’ clean internal controls over reporting objective, and internal control program.

•    Supply Diligent ACL licenses or successor to the Contractor developers and federal employees.

•    Identify business processes, or sub-processes within business processes, which can be standardized for the purpose of automation. Develop and maintain a current integrated prioritization list of identified opportunities with prioritization based on a weighted scoring model developed by the contractor and approved by the government. At the discretion of the government, develop automation scripts in UiPath Studio, Microsoft Power Automate, or similar software applications, that can ultimately transition to the end-user and run independently.

•    Transition scripts to end-users via an orderly process, to include training, and provide ongoing user support and maintenance for automation scripts.

•    Supply UiPath licenses to the Contractor developers and federal employees.

•    Develop dashboards that, at minimum, visually communicate (1) if analytics and RPA designed and deployed are working and achieving the goals of risk reduction, workload reduction, and increased passing test results; (2) the maintenance cost spent on existing analytics by the CISA IC analytics/automation team; and (3) recommended projects in the queue with prioritization based on a weighted scoring system developed by the contractor and agreed upon by CISA IC management and the summary of impact.

•    Provide professional project management services to enable the government to plan, prioritize, implement timely, monitor, and report accurately on the status of data analytics development and operations and robotic process automation development and maintenance. Manage and oversee daily development, operation, and maintenance of automated solutions and assist process owners with identifying effective solutions and developing those solutions into appropriate level project milestones, track action items from remediation meetings, and provide status information and reports to proactively identify remediation challenges and status reports to executive leadership.

Qualifications:
•    Must possess a Bachelor of Science or Arts Degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, Economics Information Systems, or applicable related field.
•    Currently hold, or able to obtain and maintain DHS fitness determination
•    Minimum of (2) years of experience

Benefits and Perks
•    Medical / Vision and Dental Plans
•    Holiday and Personal Time Off Pay
•    401K plan
•    Life Insurance
•    Education and Training Assistance Program (discussed during the onboarding process)
•    Incentive Plans and Referral Bonuses
•    Employee Assistance Programs
We are an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.