Reports

On March 27, 2020, the President signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). To date the CARES Act has provided the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) with $909.7 million, which includes direct apportionments of $756 million to support the needs of DOI programs, bureaus, Indian Country, and the Insular Areas, and a $153.7 million transfer from the U.S. Department of Education to the BIE. This report presents the DOI’s progress as of November 30, 2020, in spending CARES Act appropriations. Specifically, the DOI’s expenditures to date total $582,466,112...

This report examines COVID-19 testing efforts for six federal health care programs during the first seven months following the declaration of a public health emergency in the United States. Published by the PRAC Health Care Subgroup, the report takes a detailed look at testing data in each of the programs that, when combined, provide benefits or care for about 64 million individuals. We hope this report will help policymakers as they continue to develop and refine their testing efforts related to testing accessibility and availability for at-risk populations, cost effectiveness, and...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Postal Service provided vital service, including the delivery of critical items such as medications, stimulus payments, and Social Security checks. Further, the Postal Service is the leading delivery service provider for online purchases. A May 2020 Harris Poll survey on America’s 100 essential companies’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, ranked the Postal Service as number one, based on its resolve, integrity, responsiveness, and permanence. Our objective was to evaluate mail service during the early stages of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) disease...

Under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) enacted on March 27, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) received $909.7 million to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the coronavirus pandemic. The Office of the Secretary (OS) received $158.4 million of the DOI’s CARES Act funding and transferred funds to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), National Park Service (NPS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Office of Inspector General (OIG), Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), and Office of Wildland Fire (OWF). As of November 30, 2020, 5.3 percent of the funding...

On March 27, 2020, the President signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). To date the CARES Act has provided the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) with $909.7 million, which includes direct apportionments of $756 million to support the needs of DOI programs, bureaus, Indian Country, and the Insular Areas, and a $153.7 million transfer from the U.S. Department of Education to the BIE. This report presents the DOI’s progress as of October 31, 2020, in spending CARES Act appropriations. Specifically, the DOI’s expenditures to date total $566,168,083...

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) response to COVID-19 to determine if it appropriately, effectively, and efficiently tracked, monitored, and issued Federal Housing Administration (FHA) refunds owed to homeowners with terminated loans. During our field work, the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic began and as a result, we developed a second, more urgent audit objective to determine how COVID-19 has affected policies, procedures, and distribution of FHA refunds and whether HUD’s response was appropriate. We determined that COVID-19 generally did not...

To lead its pandemic response, the Postal Service created the COVID-19 Command Response Team at headquarters to ensure the agency followed directives and guidance from the CDC. The Postal Service implemented changes to slow the spread of the virus, manage and support affected employees, and ensure that recovered employees returned to work safely. Our objective was to assess the Postal Service’s response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak regarding the safety of its employees.

This toolkit identifies and defines four primary situations where your office may want to consider using an agile product. Consider these guidelines, best practices and lessons learned while conducting, completing, and issuing reports or other work products.

We conducted this limited review to identify the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) drawdown levels for the initial round of Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) funding. In addition, we researched information published by grantees on how they have used and will use their funds. Our objective was to highlight the grantees’ (1) drawdown levels for the initial round of ESG CARES Act funding and (2) published information on how the funds have and will be used. Our review determined that as of July 1, 2020, the ESG...

The PRAC released the Toolkit as a resource to assist federal, state, and local oversight agencies and professionals in conducting timely reviews and oversight of federal funding. The Toolkit provides OIGs and other oversight offices a set of guidelines, best practices, and lessons learned to help prepare these types of reports for CARES Act oversight and beyond.