The much-maligned Bureau of Indian Education schools – including those on the Navajo Nation – received scathing criticism in a study conducted by the General Accountability Office.

In addition to the BIE, the GAO also gave poor marks to Department of the Interior’s assistant secretary for Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The GAO found that Indian Affairs’ national information on safety and health deficiencies at schools is “not complete and accurate” because of key weaknesses in its inspection program, which prevented the GAO from conducting a broader analysis of the schools’ safety and health conditions.

Indian Affairs’ policy requires its regional safety inspectors to conduct inspections of all BIE schools annually to identify facility deficiencies that may pose a threat to the safety and health of students and staff. However, GAO found that 69 out of 180 BIE school locations were not inspected in fiscal year 2015.

It’s not a new problem. In 2012, 55 0f the schools weren’t inspected.

The GAO study discovered that some of the schools haven’t been inspected for four or more years.

Indian Affairs officials told the GAO that vacancies among regional staff contributed to this trend.

As a result, Indian Affairs lacks complete information on the frequency and severity of health and safety deficiencies at BIE schools nationwide and cannot be certain all school facilities are currently meeting safety requirements.

The GAO study reported some BIE schools in deplorable conditions, with Indian children learning in facilities without fire extinguishers or sprinklers and, in one case, with raw sewage exposed.

At one BIE school, four aging boilers in a dormitory failed inspection due to elevated levels of carbon monoxide, which can cause poisoning where there is exposure, and a natural gas leak, which can pose an explosion hazard.

Interior’s policy in a case like this calls for action within days of the inspection to protect students and staff. But, the school continued to use the dormitory, and repairs were not made for about 8 months.

Indian Affairs is responsible for assisting schools on safety issues, but it is not taking needed steps to support schools in addressing safety and health deficiencies, according to the study.

While national information is not available, officials at several schools GAO visited said they faced significant difficulties addressing deficiencies identified in annual safety and health and boiler inspections.

Indian Affairs and school officials across several regions said that limited staff capacity, among other factors, impedes schools’ ability to address safety deficiencies.

The GAO is making four recommendations, including that Indian Affairs conduct required annual inspections at all BIE schools and ensure it collects complete information on school safety and health conditions nationwide, and that it develop a plan to build schools’ capacity to promptly address safety and health deficiencies.

Interior agreed with all four recommendations and noted several actions it plans to take to address them.

BIE has been taken to task in recent months for mismanagement of funds, top-heavy administrations amid shrinking enrollments and the agency’s director forcing underlings to hire a relative and a woman he was in a relationship with.