U.S. Department of Education’s Compliance With Executive Order 13520, “Reducing Improper Payments” for Fiscal Year 2011

We found that the Department complied with Executive Order 13520, adequately addressed improper payment risks, and described an adequate level of oversight to reduce and recapture improper payments for FY 2011. However, it did not address monitoring or oversight of Pell Grant program recipients who did not use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (IRS DRT) when completing their FAFSA or recipients who were not selected for verification in its improper payment monitoring and oversight efforts. Verification is a process schools are required to conduct to confirm specific information reported on the FAFSA by the applicant. The IRS DRT is an optional tool that enables Federal student aid applicants and, as needed, parents of applicants to transfer certain tax return information from an IRS Web site directly to their online FAFSA. Only 22 percent of all FAFSAs submitted for the 2011–2012 academic year used the IRS DRT. By not studying the population of applicants who do not use the IRS DRT and who are not selected for verification, the Department may miss opportunities to further reduce and recapture improper payments. We recommended that the Department study Pell Grant program recipients who do not use the IRS DRT and who are not selected for verification to determine whether the Department has adequate controls in place or needs to implement additional controls to mitigate the risk of improper payments to this population of Pell Grant recipients.