Federal Reports

PPP documents submitted in an FWS’ employee’s name estimated income for two businesses with no evidence of reportable income related to either one.

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 that SBA complied with the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act, SBA regulations and policies regarding soliciting and accepting cash contributions for National Small Business Week 2021. SBA’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison obtained proper approval from the Office of General Counsel for the 2021 National Small Business Week cosponsored activity.We recommended the agency enhance the tracking system with alerts to ensure responsible officials close out all cosponsored activities within 90 days, as required. We also recommended the agency implement quality control procedures to ensure that required fiscal agent and SBA documents for future National Small Business Week cosponsored activities are timely, complete, accurate, and can be relied on.SBA management agreed with both of our recommendations.

The Office of the Inspector General identified several instances where time was not accurately reported in the Personnel Qualification and Scheduling program (that is used to track employees’ hours to avoid a violation of the Nuclear Fatigue Rule) and the time-reporting system. However, we were unable to determine if all Nuclear Maintenance employees’ time was accurately reported because we could not account for time that employees were not badged into the protected areas (the area encompassed by physical barriers and to which access is controlled) of the plants. The inaccurate reporting resulted in a violation of the Nuclear Fatigue Rule, unnecessary paid time off for an employee, and overstated leave balances.