WASHINGTON — Federal auditors were alarmed when they examined whether Native American schools were being inspected properly for safety violations.

Non-working fire alarms weren’t listed as high priorities to fix, which meant they didn’t have to be repaired for a year.

In two-scathing reports over the last two years, the General Accounting Office found many Bureau of Indian Affairs inspectors had not completed their training.

Sometimes inspectors didn’t look in all the buildings at a school, saying they couldn’t find it or didn’t have a key. In one case, a safety inspector did an inspection while sitting in his car.

Indian Affairs has taken some steps in response. Last year, it created guidelines for how inspectors should examine at the 185 tribal or Bureau of Indian Education elementary and secondary schools it’s responsible for inspecting.

But 16 months after the first of two GAO reports, and six years after Indian Affairs auditors identified problems putting students at risk, the issues persist.

Indian Affairs hasn’t documented how to tell if building inspectors are following the guidelines, the GAO said. Indian Affairs told investigators it’s working to put in place a way to monitor whether school inspection reports are being done properly. But it won’t be finished until June 2020.

Problems with school inspections, however, aren’t the only languishing issues.

In another report this month, the GAO said that of 50 recommendations it made in the past two years to fix numerous problems, including student safety issues, only one has been fully implemented.

Suggestions to address inadequate oversight of Native American health care and impediments to economically distressed tribes being able to make money from energy sources also have been unmet, the report stated.

The problems point to a broader issue. Many recommendations by government auditors to improve services or decrease waste and fraud go ignored.

Before a Senate committee last year, the GAO noted 4,800 recommendations it had made in the previous four years. They involved problems like Medicare overpayments, long waits for Veterans Affairs services and fraudulent Social Security payments.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., chairman of the Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management Subcommittee, said that has cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

The problems have caught the attention of senators., who are vowing to keep the heat on agencies responsible for Native American education, health and economic development.

The problems identified by GAO agencies “put the health and safety of Native Americans at risk,“ said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., at a Senate Indian Affairs committee hearing earlier this month.

“I expect any future recommendations to be taken seriously by the agencies,” he told officials from the agencies. He said he’ll bring agencies back to the committee in another six months to see what progress they’re making.

“It appears progress can only be made when Congress keeps the pressure on,” added committee vice chairman Tom Udall, D-N.M.

To make matters worse, investigators within the agencies had identified many of the problems years before the GAO.

“Despite internal findings of major weaknesses with BIA’s safety program since 2011, officials from Interior and Indian Affairs have taken no actions to correct them,” the GAO said in a report on the school inspections in May.

Because of the longstanding problems, the GAO earlier this year added Native American education, health care and energy development to a “high-risk” list of federal issues considered to be particularly problematic. The list includes the U.S. Postal Service, Medicare fraud, defense procurement, cybersecurity and climate change.

Officials from Indian Affairs and Indian Health said at the hearing they are working on implementing the recommendations, and are close to being finished with a couple of them. The Indian Health Service said it has developed a standard and is monitoring wait times for doctors’ appointments. It also is close to creating standards for the quality of health care, including credentialing doctors.

“Much work remains, but we’re making progress,” Tony Dearman, director of the Bureau of Indian Education, told the committee.

Even so, some critical changes won’t happen for years. Indian Affairs couldn’t say Friday why it won’t have a system in place to monitor the accuracy of inspection reports for another three years.

GAO investigators have also said the Indian Affairs bureau has hurt attempts by tribes to make money from wind power and other energy sources.

Indian Affairs has to sign off on any deals tribes want to make on their lands, but it has “inefficiently managed Indian energy resources … thereby limiting opportunities for tribes and their members to use those resources to create economic benefits and improve the well-being of their communities,” a June 2015 GAO report concluded.

Local offices didn’t have anyone qualified to review the energy deals, the report stated. Staff at one unidentified office, in an area where tribes could reap money from wind power, told investigators they would send plans to the regional office, but no one there could review the plans, either.

GAO recommended that the BIA assess whether it had employees qualified to review economic development deals involving energy. Two years later, the bureau just finished surveying employees to see what skills they had in order to determine — by the end of the year — what is lacking.

Contact Washington reporter Kery Murakami at kmurakami@cnhi.com