Department of Education

We notified the Department that FSA was not enforcing a contract requirement that PCAs report verbal complaints from borrowers to FSA. The contracts between PCAs and the Department provide that each PCA will adhere to Department complaint procedures. Those procedures mandate specific actions a PCA...

FSA paid $448 million in commissions and $8.3 million in bonuses to Private Collection Agencies (PCAs) based on estimates because DMCS2 could not provide the information necessary to calculate actual commissions and bonuses. During FY 2012, FSA had individual contracts with 23 PCAs to perform...

We found that the Debt Management Collection System 2 (DMCS2), the Federal Student Aid office’s (FSA) system for managing defaulted student loans, was unable to accept the transfer of certain defaulted student loans from FSA’s Title IV Servicers. At the time of our audit, the entities that service...

Our evaluation of the Department’s monitoring of i3 program grant recipients found that Department program officers regularly engaged with and monitored i3 grantees. However, they did not hold accountable i3 grantees that did not respond or did not respond timely to Department requests. We...

We reviewed management' s assertions about performance-related measures for key drug control programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education (Department) contained in the Department’s Performance Summary Report for Fiscal Year 2012. The Department’s management is responsible for the...

We reviewed management's assertions contained in the Detailed Accounting of Fiscal Year 2012 Drug Control Funds, dated January 28, 2013 (Accounting). The U.S. Department of Education's management is responsible for the Accounting and the assertions contained therein. Based on our review, nothing...

Our audit determined that the Department could improve its management of the Federal Real Property Assistance Program (FRPA). FRPA allows the Department to sell or lease, at a Public Benefit Allowance discount, surplus Federal real property to eligible entities for educational purposes. We found...

We found weaknesses in the Department’s processes for reviewing and evaluating Teacher Incentive Fund program (TIF) applications with regard to the involvement and support of stakeholders, a required element of the application. Non-Federal reviewers accepted varying levels of evidence of the support...

The Department received a clean opinion on its FY 2012 and FY 2011 special-purpose financial statements. However, like the other financial statement audits, the audit reports included a material weakness related to controls surrounding the Department’s Debt Management Collection System and ACS...

Both the Department and FSA received unqualified (clean) opinions on their FY 2012 and FY 2011 financial statements. However, the audit reports noted a material weakness in internal control surrounding the Department’s Debt Management Collection System and ACS Education Servicing System—the legacy...