Reports
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Pandemic Response Accountability Committee
BEST PRACTICES AND LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE ADMINISTRATION OF PANDEMIC RELATED UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS PROGRAMS
The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) is charged with conducting oversight of pandemic-related spending to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. In May 2021, we engaged MITRE, a not-for-profit federally funded research and development center, to conduct an independent study of lessons learned from the administration of pandemic-related emergency funding for unemployment insurance (UI) benefit programs in a sample of states. The objective of this study was to increase understanding of how states implemented pandemic UI benefit programs and how their...
Department of Labor OIG
Performance Audit of the Short-Time Compensation Program under the CARES Act, Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers Act and the America Rescue Plan Act
The Short-Time Compensation (STC) program acts as a work share program, with employers reducing the number of hours offered to employees and the state making up the difference in the form of benefit payments. Our focus will be to determine if Department of Labor ensured states met the STC program requirements and used the related funds in accordance with provisions under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, the Continued Assistance Act, and the America Rescue Plan Act for the period of March 27, 2020 to September 6, 2021.
Department of Education OIG
Review of State Plans for Use of Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Funds
The objectives of our review were to review States’ initial 45-day GEER Fund reports to determine how States plan to allocate funds to entities within the three authorized categories: local educational agencies (LEA), institutions of higher education (IHE), and education-related entities, and the criteria upon which these decisions were based; and review GEER Fund annual reports to identify changes to and progress made from the initial plans in the 45-day reports. We found that within the three authorized entity categories, 45 States (87 percent) planned to allocate GEER funds to LEAs, 39...
Pandemic Response Accountability Committee
Key Insights: State Pandemic Unemployment Insurance Programs
This insights report provides a contextual understanding of the cross-cutting challenges states faced within their unemployment insurance (UI) programs and highlights the substantial work that has been done by State Auditors to ensure their states’ UI programs are functioning effectively. This report examines four common insights across 16 State Auditor Offices: (1) UI workloads surged for states; (2) the claims surge exploited internal control weaknesses; (3) uncommon and varying fraud schemes began to occur as the amount of federal funding expanded; and (4) state workforce agencies...
Small Business Administration OIG
COVID-19 EIDL Program Recipients on the Department of Treasury's Do Not Pay List
We produced this Management Advisory to notify Small Business Administration (SBA) officials of serious concerns about potential improper payments in SBA’s Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. Our review of Treasury’s analysis of processed COVID-19 EIDL and emergency EIDL grants from March to November 2020 revealed that SBA’s lack of adequate pre-award controls during this period of review led to 75,180 COVID-19 EIDLs totaling over $3.1 billion and 117,135 emergency EIDL grants totaling over $550 million being disbursed to potentially ineligible...
Department of Labor OIG
Performance Audit of the Mixed Earners Unemployment Compensation (MEUC) program under the Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers Act (Continued Assistance Act) and the America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)
DOL and states found themselves unprepared for the overwhelming circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and struggled to implement CARES Act UI Programs and Continue Assistance Act which added the Mixed Earners Unemployment Compensation (MEUC) program. MEUC is a new temporary, federal program that provides an extra unemployment income to self-employed individuals. As unprecedented levels of unemployment resulted in millions of jobless Americans applying for unemployment benefits during the pandemic this also led to states reporting an inability to process claims, complete required reporting, or perform required overpayment detection procedures due to an inability to hire sufficient levels of staffing. The objective of this audit is to determine how states implemented the MEUC program.
Small Business Administration OIG
SBA Emergency EIDL Grants to Sole Proprietors and Independent Contractors
The Office of Inspector General examined Emergency EIDL grants to sole proprietors and independent contractors from March 29, 2020, until the funds were exhausted just 14 weeks later on July 10. We set out to determine whether the agency complied with its internal policy that set Emergency EIDL grants at $1,000 per employee up to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act mandated maximum amount of $10,000. Using SBA’s data, we found SBA provided $4.5 billion more in Emergency EIDL grants to sole proprietors and independent contractors than they were entitled to receive...