Reports
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Pandemic Response Accountability Committee
Key Insights: Identity Fraud Reduction and Redress in Pandemic Response Programs
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...
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...
Pandemic Response Accountability Committee
Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program Phase III Fraud Controls
The PRAC examined whether the Small Business Administration (SBA) Phase III fraud controls, which were applied to process Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans in 2021, would have likely detected the earlier fraud found in PPP criminal cases. SBA designed the PPP Phase III controls to address significant fraud identified in the earlier phases of the program and some were later used by the SBA in its Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) program.
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...
Pandemic Response Accountability Committee
Increasing Transparency into COVID-19 Spending
The objective of this review was to identify specific gaps in transparency in award data for federal assistance spending in response to COVID-19. We looked at 51,000 awards worth $347 billion that supported the pandemic response (as of June 15, 2021). The report includes three findings, including we found more than 15,400 awards worth $33 billion with meaningless descriptions that make it difficult to know how COVID-19 relief money was used. The report includes five recommendations to help improve the transparency into COVID-19 relief spending.
U.S. Postal Service OIG
U.S. Postal Service Protection Against External Cyberattacks
Our objective was to determine if the Postal Service has an effective security posture to protect its Information Technology (IT) infrastructure from external cyberattacks and prevent unauthorized access to restricted data.