Federal Reports

This report details the Office of Inspector General's Spring 2024 Semiannual Report to Congress. The following topics are included: • Overview of the SBA and the OIG • Pandemic Response Oversight • Small Business Access to Capital • Disaster Loan Program • Procurement Assistance • Agency Management • Other Significant OIG Activities • Statistical Highlights • Appendices

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.

The VA OIG conducted this review to determine whether VA complied with the requirements of the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) for FY 2023. PIIA requires federal agencies to identify and review all programs and activities they administer that may be susceptible to significant improper payments based on OMB guidance. PIIA also requires each OIG to review its agency’s improper payment reports and issue an annual report. In FY 2023, VA reported improper and unknown payment estimates totaling $3.2 billion for seven programs. Of that amount, about $1.8 billion (about 57 percent) represented a monetary loss, and about $1.4 billion (about 43 percent) was considered either a nonmonetary loss that cannot be recovered or an unknown payment. These results represent a reduction of $334 million (10 percent) from FY 2022 results. VA satisfied nine of the 10 requirements under PIIA. VA did not meet requirement 6 because VA failed to report an improper and unknown payment rate of less than 10 percent for two VA programs that had estimates in the materials accompanying their financial statements. VA satisfied the additional reporting requirements for two high priority programs with prior-year monetary losses from improper payments of more than $100 million reported in FY 2023. The OIG recommended the under secretary for benefits reduce improper and unknown payments to below 10 percent for the Pension Program and the under secretary for health reduce improper and unknown payments to below 10 percent for the Purchased Long-Term Services and Supports Program. Both are repeat recommendations that have not been implemented from the FY 2022 report.

The objective of our audit was to determine whether the Department complied with the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) for FY 2023. We found that the Department complied with the PIIA for the FY 2023 reporting period because it met all six compliance requirements; however, it could improve its processes for implementing its methodologies for computing improper payments and unknown payments. Specifically, the Department’s improper payment and unknown payment estimates for the Improving Basic Programs Operated by Local Educational Agencies and Education Stabilization Fund programs were produced from incomplete Stage 1 sampling populations. An incomplete Stage 1 sampling population of drawdowns could affect the accuracy of the confidence intervals for the improper payment and unknown payment estimate. Further, although we found the point estimates reflect the annual improper payment and unknown payments, the Department’s improper payment and unknown payment estimates for five programs were not reliable because of issues in the calculation of the confidence intervals. We made five recommendations to address the issues identified, including that the Department develop and implement procedures to ensure the sampling populations of drawdowns are complete, and ensure changes made for the query design are implemented in subsequent years for programs that are required to produce an improper payment estimate.