Congress provided $5.5 billion for the Emergency Assistance to Nonpublic Schools (EANS) program. The purpose of the EANS programs, authorized under the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSA) and American Rescue Plan (ARP), is to provide services or assistance to eligible nonpublic schools to address educational disruptions caused by the COVID-19 emergency. Our audit objectives were to determine whether the Tennessee Department of Education (Tennessee) designed and implemented (1) application processes that adequately assessed nonpublic schools’ eligibility for EANS-funded services or assistance and complied with other applicable requirements and (2) oversight processes to ensure that EANS-funded services or assistance were used for allowable purposes.
Tennessee designed and implemented application processes that adequately assessed nonpublic schools’ eligibility for EANS-funded services or assistance and complied with other applicable requirements despite not having written procedures. However, we identified several weaknesses in Tennessee’s oversight of its EANS programs that could be improved: Tennessee did not ensure that drawdowns of CRRSA EANS funds were always supported by CRRSA EANS expenditures; Tennessee had not fully implemented policies and procedures for maintaining a record of assets purchased with EANS funds; and Tennessee did not obtain prior approval for certain EANS expenditures.
We made four recommendations to address the weaknesses we identified in Tennessee’s oversight of its EANS programs. Tennessee agreed with our recommendations, and described actions it has implemented. In addition, Tennessee provided documentation to support corrective actions already taken.
See OIG work involving pandemic relief aid.