U.S. Department of Education’s Compliance with Improper Payment Reporting Requirements for Fiscal Year 2016

Department did not comply with IPERA for FY 2016 because it did not meet two of IPERA’s six compliance requirements. First, the Department reported improper payment rates for the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program (Direct Loan) and the Federal Pell Grant (Pell) program that did not meet the FY 2016 reduction targets it established in its FY 2015 Agency Financial Report. Second, the Department’s improper payment risk assessments for its Department-managed grant programs and Federal Student Aid-managed contracting activities did notconform to the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002, as amended, and with Office of Management and Budget guidance, because it did not consider all nine required risk factors in its assessments. In addition, the Department did not report the Vocational Rehabilitation State Grants program as a program that may be susceptible to significant improper payment in its Agency Financial Report even though the Department’s risk assessment showed that the program exceeded the statutory thresholds to be reported as such. We found that the Department’s improper payment estimates, methodologies, and reporting were generally accurate and complete; however, we identified issuesin all three areas. First, the Department needs to improve its policies and procedures over the Direct Loan and Pell programs’ improper payment estimates because we found errors with how the Department included the results of five program reviews in the two programs’ improper payment calculations.