Reports

The Illinois Auditor General, conducted a performance audit of the Business Interruption Grant (BIG) program, which was developed under the state's Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) to provide $585 million in economic relief for small businesses hit hardest by COVID-19. Among their findings the Auditor General noted that DCEO allowed, without verification, BIG small business grant applicants to self-certify that they complied with all laws as well as reporting other pandemic funding. The office's analysis found 196 ineligible applicants received $3.42 million in the first...

Our audit objective was to answer the following questions: (1) What is Kansas’ process for distributing COVID relief funding?; and (2) Have Kansas’ distributions of COVID relief funding been appropriate? The scope of our work included examining the distribution process for CARES Act and American Rescue Plan Act funding. Additionally, we evaluated a sample of CARES Act expenditures made in 42 Kansas counties.

Our audit objective was to answer the question: what entities received Connectivity Emergency Response Grants and where were they located? We found that the Kansas Department of Commerce (Commerce) awarded $48.5 million in Connectivity Emergency Response Grant funds through 66 grants to all seven regions in Kansas with the largest amounts going to South Central, Southwest, and Northeast Kansas. We also found that Commerce denied some applications through its review process.

In this performance audit of the State of Illinois's response to the management of the COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans' Home, the Illinois Office of the Auditor General identified that while the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) was notified of the increasing number of COVID-19 cases at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home beginning on November 1, 2020, they did not identify and respond to the seriousness of the outbreak despite it being a responsibility of the department to provide guidance and monitoring to protect the residents at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home.

This audit report assessed what factors caused delays in the Kansas Department of Labor’s unemployment claims processing during the COVID-19 pandemic? To answer this question, we spoke with officials from the Kansas Department of Labor (KDOL) and reviewed KDOL staffing, incident, and call center reports. This audit also includes an updated unemployment insurance fraud estimate. In February 2021 we released the first part of this audit. In that audit we reported a preliminary estimate of how much fraud could have occurred in Kansas in 2020. In this report, we used KDOL claims data from January...

Representative John Barker requested this limited-scope audit, which was authorized by the Legislative Post Audit Committee at its February 24, 2021 meeting. Our audit objective was to answer the following question: How did causes of death during the COVID-19 pandemic compare to those before the pandemic? To answer this question, we reviewed death record data from 2019 and 2020 for the last third of each year (September 1 – December 31).

This audit attempts to answer the following question. What types of unemployment claims fraud schemes is the Kansas Department of Labor aware of and how are they being addressed?

This audit will look at the quality of data reported in selected President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) programs to determine if weaknesses exist that may lead to inaccurate results reporting. The objectives of this audit are to assess the extent to which USAID has: (1) designed and implemented internal controls over collecting, verifying, and reporting PEPFAR data; and (2) identified and mitigated the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on its internal controls over PEPFAR data quality.  

As required by section 8L of the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, the Inspectors General for the Department of Defense, Department of State, and USAID work together to report quarterly to Congress on every overseas contingency operation’s progress and corresponding oversight activities.  Starting in the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, these quarterly reports include reporting on the COVID-19 outbreaks in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and the Philippines, as well as the U.S. government response to them.

USAID’s branding and marking efforts enhance the visibility and value of U.S. foreign assistance and are intended to inform beneficiaries that aid comes from the American people. Unfortunately, according to the Agency, beneficiaries of the billions of dollars of foreign assistance provided by the United States every year often have little to no awareness that the aid they receive is provided by the American people.  The objectives of this audit are to determine the extent to which USAID: (1) has policies and procedures to ensure compliance with statutory branding and marking requirements and (2) provided information and oversight to ensure implementers complied with branding and marking requirements. Given particular interest from Congress amid the ongoing pandemic, this audit will consider the impact of COVID-19 under both objectives as appropriate.