Reports

The purpose of the audit is to determine whether the Illinois State Board of Education has an adequate oversight process in place to ensure that (1) local educational agencies’ (LEAs) American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ARP ESSER) plans met applicable requirements and (2) LEAs use ARP ESSER funds in accordance with applicable requirements and the approved LEA ARP ESSER plan.

The objective of our review is to determine FSA’s progress on spending student aid administration funds authorized by coronavirus response and relief laws, including how those funds have been used to date and FSA’s plans for using remaining funds.
 

The purpose of the audit is to determine whether the Kentucky Department of Education has an adequate oversight process in place to ensure that (1) local educational agencies’ American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund plans met applicable requirements and (2) LEAs use ARP ESSER funds in accordance with applicable requirements and the approved LEA ARP ESSER plan.

The purpose of the audit is to determine whether the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has an adequate oversight process in place to ensure that (1) local educational agencies’  American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief plans met applicable requirements and (2) LEAs use ARP ESSER funds in accordance with applicable requirements and the approved LEA ARP ESSER plan.

The OIG is conducting an audit of the Office on Violence Against Women’s Grant Administration due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.  The preliminary objectives are to assess: (1) the grant administration and monitoring during the pandemic and (2) the guidance and assistance provided to grant recipients for addressing any increased risks to effective program implementation and to violence against women.

The review will cover selected LEAs’ experience with purchasing technology to continue students’ instruction as schools closed and reopened in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. The review will include a survey to obtain information regarding the types of technology purchased, the impact the technology had on student learning, and the challenges LEAs faced related to the purchase and maintenance of that technology.

Immunization Information Systems (IISs) play an integral role in monitoring vaccine uptake in the population and meeting vaccination goals. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other stakeholders have long invested significant efforts to establish plans and standards to guide improvements in IISs, State, and local jurisdictions have often struggled to make these improvements. CDC's work to collect and share data on COVID-19 vaccinations relies heavily on State and local IISs working with Federal systems, but the preexisting limitations of these systems pose challenges for CDC's goal of comprehensive immunization data being made available for clinical and public health uses. This study will examine State and Federal experiences using these systems to collect, share, and monitor data on COVID-19 vaccinations, and identify lessons learned that can improve vaccination data and monitoring for future mass vaccination campaigns as well as routine vaccination programs.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) awarded nearly $2 billion in supplemental grant funding to 1,387 health centers nationwide in fiscal year (FY) 2020 to respond to the COVID-19 public health emergency. The funding was intended to support the health centers' activities related to the detection, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of COVID-19, including maintaining or increasing health center capacity and staffing levels during the pandemic, and expanding COVID-19 testing. The performance period for each of these one-time supplemental grant awards, which HRSA began awarding in March 2020, is 12 months. Health centers were permitted to charge to their awards pre-award costs in order to support expenses related to the COVID-19 public health emergency dating back to January 20, 2020. We will determine whether health centers used their HRSA COVID-19 supplemental grant funding in accordance with Federal requirements and grant terms.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations nationwide.  We will focus on IHS's coordination of the distribution, allocation, and administration of the vaccine to Tribal Health Programs. The objective of this audit is to determine whether IHS followed the Memorandum of Agreement for the CDC COVID-19 Federal Agency Vaccination Program and the IHS COVID-19 Pandemic Vaccine Plan to coordinate the distribution, allocation, and administration of the vaccines to Tribal Health Programs to protect AI/AN beneficiaries. 

Identifying patients who are at-risk of overdose or abuse is key to addressing this crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this need even more pressing. The National Institutes of Health recently warned that individuals with opioiduse disorder could be particularly hard hit by COVID-19, which is a respiratory virus that attacks the lungs. Respiratory disease is known to increase mortality risks among people taking opioids. This data brief would provide information on opioid utilization among beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Part D in 2020.