Federal Reports

SEC’s Whistleblower Program: Additional Actions Are Needed To Better Prepare for Future Program Growth, Increase Efficiencies, and Enhance Program Management, Report No. 575

This report presents the results of our evaluation of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) handling of cash contributions and gifts. The objective of the evaluation was to determine the adequacy of SBA controls over the solicitation, acceptance, holding, and use of cash contributions and gifts.We found SBA complied with the 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act and SBA regulations and policies regarding soliciting and accepting cash contributions for National Small Business Week 2022. SBA’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison obtained proper approval from the Office of General Counsel for the 2022 business week cosponsored activity.We determined SBA complied with applicable laws and SBA regulations and policies regarding the acceptance, holding, and use of gift funds. Specifically, the agency accepted a $505,879 unsolicited gift from the cosponsors of business week activities held between 2020 and 2022. Excess funds are the contributed cash or collected fees that are left over after expenses are subtracted from the revenues. This gift represented the cosponsors share of excess cash contributions that remained at the conclusion of the activities. The cosponsors elected to have their share of the excess funds be made a gift to SBA, available for the next National Small Business Week cosponsored event.We made two recommendations to improve controls over 2022 business week closeout reporting and the government purchase card use. SBA management agreed with both recommendations and has fully implemented corrective actions for Recommendation 1.

This report presents the results of our evaluation of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) handling of cash contributions and gifts. The objective of the evaluation was to determine the adequacy of SBA controls over the solicitation, acceptance, holding, and use of cash contributions and gifts.We found SBA complied with the 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act and SBA regulations and policies regarding soliciting and accepting cash contributions for National Small Business Week 2022. SBA’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison obtained proper approval from the Office of General Counsel for the 2022 business week cosponsored activity.We determined SBA complied with applicable laws and SBA regulations and policies regarding the acceptance, holding, and use of gift funds. Specifically, the agency accepted a $505,879 unsolicited gift from the cosponsors of business week activities held between 2020 and 2022. Excess funds are the contributed cash or collected fees that are left over after expenses are subtracted from the revenues. This gift represented the cosponsors share of excess cash contributions that remained at the conclusion of the activities. The cosponsors elected to have their share of the excess funds be made a gift to SBA, available for the next National Small Business Week cosponsored event.We made two recommendations to improve controls over 2022 business week closeout reporting and the government purchase card use. SBA management agreed with both recommendations and has fully implemented corrective actions for Recommendation 1.

What We Looked AtEstablished in 1998 through the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program provides long-term, low-interest loans and other types of credit assistance to eligible applicants for surface transportation projects. Accordingly, our audit objective was to assess the effectiveness of the Build America Bureau internal controls to oversee and manage TIFIA credit agreements. What We FoundThe Build America Bureau has not established adequate internal controls to effectively oversee and manage its TIFIA credit assistance program. We found five instances where the Bureau did not notify borrowers timely, and one instance where the Bureau could not provide the notification letter. Additionally, we identified costs that had not been invoiced timely, as well as overpaid and unpaid fees. The Bureau has not provided operating administrations guidance that defines key roles and responsibilities for reviewing and approving TIFIA loan requisition requests. Further, the Bureau provided documentation to support 44 of the 47 disbursements we tested but could not provide documentation for 3 disbursements, totaling approximately $294.1 million. The Bureau maintains TIFIA loan applications and disbursement requests on a shared drive, which serves as its official system of record. We identified eight individuals who retained improper access to TIFIA’s shared drive and five discrepancies between TIFIA’s loan portfolio and the Bureau’s website. Our RecommendationsWe are making 10 recommendations to improve internal controls for overseeing and managing credit agreements associated with the TIFIA program. The Bureau concurred with all our recommendations and provided completion dates. We consider recommendation 7 resolved and closed based on documentation the Bureau provided after our review was completed. We consider the remaining recommendations 1 through 6 and 8 through 10 resolved but open pending completion of the planned actions.

Report undergoing 508 compliance review.