Reports

This Insights Report highlights identity fraud related challenges in federal programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. By evaluating previous oversight work in this space from members of the PRAC’s Identity Fraud Reduction and Redress Working Group, this report presents best practices to reduce identity fraud before it occurs and to assist victims of identity fraud if it does occur. These best practices may be helpful for federal agencies to utilize moving forward. This report also identifies that across the federal government there is a larger focus on reducing identity fraud up front, while...

This flash report presents our finding concerning duplicate Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) grant awards to institutions of higher education.1 This report includes a recommendation to enhance the U.S. Department of Education’s (Department) ability to prevent, identify, and correct duplicate HEERF grant awards. We identified 25 duplicate HEERF grant awards that OPE made to 24 schools, totaling about $73 million, which had not been corrected and documented in G5 as of August 2021. OPE officials stated that their processes for reviewing and approving HEERF applications and awards...

As a part of our audit of the State of Louisiana’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report and our work related to the Single Audit of the State of Louisiana for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021, we performed procedures at the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) to provide assurances on financial information that is significant to the state’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report; evaluate the effectiveness of LWC’s internal controls over financial reporting and compliance; and determine whether LWC complied with applicable laws and regulations. In addition, we determined whether management...

From May 21, 2021 to November 9, 2021, the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) paid $486,050 on two emergency contracts without first obtaining the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (BESE’s) approval. The Louisiana Administrative Code requires that professional and consulting services contracts recommended by the Superintendent of Education at, or above, a certain amount (currently $50,000) be approved by BESE. By paying contractors for professional and consulting services prior to obtaining BESE’s approval, DOE may have violated a provision of the Louisiana...

The Student Success Act provides an extra $1 billion of tax money a year for early childhood education and K-12 school improvement. It requires the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to track district performance and work with districts to improve, building on other recent state and federal initiatives and bringing the state the closest it has been to meeting the funding recommendations of the Quality Education Model. This advisory report identifies five key risks we found that could undermine K-12 system improvement as the state implements the 2019 Student Success Act. The report draws on...