Reports

The purpose of this report is to share with the U.S. Department of Education (Department) observations made by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) concerning institutions of higher education (IHE) that ceased to provide educational instruction in all programs of study (closed) and received or had access to coronavirus response and relief aid through the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). We found that 17 IHEs that closed on or before December 31, 2020, applied for and were awarded a total of $4,912,675 of HEERF grants by OPE. Of these 17 IHEs, 14 drew down HEERF funds and 3 did...

As of March 31, 2021, HUD had disbursed $3.4 billion and obligated $7.4 billion of its $12.4 billion in CARES Act funds. Meanwhile, HUD has more than $1.6 billion in CARES Act funds unobligated. These funds have various expiration dates. For example, HUD has until September 30, 2021, to obligate $28 million of the remaining management and administration CARES Act funds and until September 30, 2022, to obligate more than $1.3 billion of the remaining Office of Community Planning and Development’s CARES Act funds. If HUD is unable to obligate funds properly before its appropriations expire, it...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG), has completed a survey of the impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) grantees. Our objective was to determine the challenges that HUD and its CDBG-DR grantees are experiencing related to the COVID-19 pandemic and to help inform the Office of Community Planning and Development and Congress on the issues faced in responding to the pandemic. HUD’s CDBG-DR grantees across the country reported facing similar...

We prepared this memorandum to provide the Office of Housing at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with key considerations from prior audits of the HUD Single Family Default Monitoring System (SFDMS) and the partial claim loss mitigation option. These audits identified HUD’s lack of effective controls to ensure that lenders reported default information accurately and in a timely manner, lenders promptly filed and reported partial claims, and partial claims fully reinstated delinquent loans. Prior audits also identified that the current design of partial claims results...

The objective of our inspection was to determine (1) whether selected institutions receiving funds under the Institutional Portion of Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) met public reporting requirements and (2) the reported usage of the Institutional Portion of HEERF by selected institutions. We determined that 81 of the 100 institutions included in our sample complied with Institutional Portion reporting requirements. We were unable to locate Institutional Portion reports anywhere on the websites associated with 19 of the 100 (19 percent) institutions included in our sample.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act designated $10 billion to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to support continuing operations at U.S. airports following the sharp decline in passenger traffic and other airport business due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. By the end of fiscal year 2020, FAA had obligated approximately $9.4 billion in formula grants to airports for such purposes as capital expenditures, operating expenses (including payroll and utilities), and debt payments. We are initiating this audit because the act also provided $5 million to OIG for conducting oversight of DOT projects and activities supported by CARES Act funds. Our objective is to assess whether FAA’s policies and procedures for awarding and overseeing CARES Act grants are sufficient to protect taxpayer interests.

The objective of this desk review is to evaluate the State of Alaska documentation supporting the uses of its Coronavirus Relief Fund proceeds as reported in GrantSolutions, and to assess risk of unallowable use of funds. The scope of our review will include obligation and expenditure data for the period March 1 through December 31, 2020, as reported in cycles 1 through 3 in the GrantSolutions portal.