Reports

We found that a full-time NPS employee wrongfully obtained State unemployment insurance and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation.

We found that a USBR employee wrongfully obtained $28,524 in combined Unemployment Insurance and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this review to provide a comprehensive estimate of the potential fraud in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) pandemic assistance loan programs. Over the course of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, SBA disbursed approximately $1.2 trillion of COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds.In the rush to swiftly disburse COVID-19 EIDL and PPP funds, SBA calibrated its internal controls. The agency weakened or removed the controls...

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) is issuing this management advisory to bring to your attention concerns regarding the return of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds. This issue requires immediate attention and action by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to ensure it has processes and procedures in place to adequately accept, process, and account for PPP funds returned by borrowers, lenders, and financial institutions. Expedited management action should mitigate the risk of financial loss to taxpayers.Establishing clear and detailed guidance for borrowers, lenders, and...

New Jersey City University senior administrators submitted a budget for approval by the Board of Trustees (the Board) that proposed using nearly $14 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to pay for an existing institutional scholarship program. The Office of the State Comptroller found that the University's former administrators were aware that using federal COVID-19 relief funding from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund to fund the existing institutional scholarship program likely violated federal law. Nevertheless, rather than presenting a budget that reflected the University’s...

We prepared this white paper to report on the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 7(a) loan program performance during SBA’s response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and address potential risks SBA should consider in managing the program.We identified factors that could impact the 7(a) loan program and should be considered in SBA’s program risk strategy. Specifically, in FY 2021, the total amount of loans increased to $31.4 billion from $19.4 billion in FY 2020 (62 percent increase) and $20.6 billion in FY 2019 (53 percent increase), as did the average loan amount...

This investigative audit was performed in accordance with Louisiana Revised Statutes 24:513, et seq. to determine the validity of complaints we received. The procedures we performed primarily consisted of making inquiries and examining selected financial records and other documents and do not constitute an examination or review in accordance with generally accepted auditing or attestation standards. The Washington Parish Fire Protection District No. 7 (District 7) Secretary provided inaccurate and incomplete information to the Louisiana Workforce Commission to obtain COVID-19 pandemic...

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...

On March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) was enacted. It included $8 billion for direct payments to Indian Tribes and $522 million of direct appropriations to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) for COVID-19 response. Given this infusion of funding, we examined the impact of COVID-19 on the Indian detention system from April 1, 2020, to May 31, 2020, including the actions the BIA and the tribes have taken to respond to outbreaks of this virus, and how other longstanding challenges have affected the BIA’s response...

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...