FRAUD AND TITLE I TUTORING PROGRAMS

We issued a management information report to alert the Department to serious fraud and corruption in Educational Services (SES) tutoring programs. We noted that the OIG has experienced a significant increase in the number of investigations involving fraud and corruption among SES providers. The cases have involved falsification of billing and attendance records, corruption by public officials, conflicts of interest, and the use of improper financial incentives to enroll students into the programs. These investigations, combined with OIG audit work conducted over the last decade, have identified a lack of oversight and monitoring of SES providers by SEAs that leaves SES programs vulnerable to waste, fraud, and abuse. We made a number of recommendations that, if implemented, would mitigate the risk of fraud and corruption in SES or similar programs involving services provided by third parties who bill on a per-child basis.