Federal Reports

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.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, ecommerce grew from 9.7 percent of total retail sales in 2018 to about 14.5 percent from 2020 to 2022. Returns grew during and after the pandemic as well: by 2023, the National Retail Federation estimated 17.6 percent of online purchases in the U.S. by revenue were returned to retailers.Reverse logistics refers to the movement of goods from the consumer to their place of manufacture, sale, or disposal. Returned items may be resold as new, refurbished to be sold on the secondary market, recycled, or disposed of in a landfill.

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