Federal Reports

This report presents the results of the required audit of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) compliance with the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019. We contracted with the independent certified public accounting firm KPMG LLP to conduct a performance audit, as required by the Act. The objectives of the engagement were to review the payment integrity section of SBA’s Fiscal Year 2020 Agency Financial Report to determine whether the agency was in compliance with the Act. KPMG also evaluated the agency’s accuracy and completeness of reporting and performance in preventing and reducing improper payments.The independent auditors’ report presents KPMG’s findings on the agency’s improper payment reporting required under the Act. KPMG reported that SBA is compliant with four of the six reporting requirements in the Act. However, SBA is not compliant with the Act because the Disaster Direct Loan Program reported an improper payments rate that exceeded the 10 percent threshold for compliance and did not demonstrate improvements as evidenced by not meeting its planned FY 2020 improper payments target reduction. In addition, KPMG found the agency needs to improve the completeness and accuracy of improper payment reporting. The agency also needs to improve controls to prevent and reduce improper payments.

Our objective for this report was to assess the extent to which the company is accurately and transparently using, accounting for, and reporting on funds it was provided through the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021.We found that the company remained a good steward of the $1 billion in funding Congress provided as part of the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 (Relief Act) and is, in general, accurately using and accounting for these funds. We identified two opportunities where the company can be more transparent in its communications and reporting on its planned spending and adherence to congressional directives related to employee furloughs.

Our objective was to assess the U.S. Postal Service’s social media and digital channel security posture. We also assessed whether policies are in place to protect the integrity of the Postal Service’s official social media and digital channel presence.

We determined that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Border Patrol headquarters officials were only aware of a few of the 83 CBP employees’ cases of social media misconduct. CBP and Border Patrol senior officials only responded to one of those cases, upon direction from DHS. In contrast, the senior Office of Field Operations (OFO) headquarters leader issued guidance to remind OFO employees of acceptable use of social media. With regard to the posts media outlets published in July 2019, we found no evidence that senior CBP headquarters or field leaders were aware of them until they were made public by the media. We also found some senior leaders questioned the legality or the application of CBP policies, which may undermine CBP’s ability to enforce the policies. We made two recommendations to help reduce the incidence of social media misconduct. First, we recommended the Commissioner ensures CBP uniformly applies social media misconduct policies, and establishes social media training for new recruits and annual refresher training for all employees. CBP concurred with all recommendations.