The U.S. Department of Education’s Awarding and Monitoring Grantees’ Uses of Disaster Recovery Funds for Postsecondary Schools

The Department designed policies and procedures for awarding and monitoring discretionary grants through its Discretionary Grant Handbook. Additionally, the Department designed risk mitigation strategies specific to the Defraying Costs and Emergency Assistance programs through the Internal Control Plan. Together, these policies and procedures, as designed, should have provided reasonable assurance that the Department awarded and monitored grantees’ uses of Defraying Costs and Emergency Assistance grants in accordance with the Bipartisan Budget Act, Uniform Guidance, and Department policy. We concluded that OPE did not implement all the relevant Discretionary Grant Handbook processes and Internal Control Plan risk mitigation strategies as designed. Specifically, OPE did not (1) scrutinize costs in all applications and eliminate those costs that were unallowable; (2)validate grantees’ self-reported data; (3) prepare appropriate terms, such as a high-risk designation and associated conditions, for any awards made to grantees it designated as high risk; (4) apply its Emergency Assistance program allocation formula as designed; (5)conduct post-award conferences; (6) complete post-award monitoring; (7) support changes made through administrative action grant award notifications; and(8) retain all relevant records in official Emergency Assistance grant files.