The objective of this statutory audit was to determine whether the Department complied with the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 for FY 2020.
The Department did not comply with the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 because it did not meet two of the six compliance requirements. Specifically, the Department did not demonstrate improvement in reducing improper payments in the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program. In addition, the Department reported improper payment rates that exceed 10 percent for the Temporary Emergency Impact Aid for Displaced Students and Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations programs. We also found that the Department’s improper payment risk assessment process needs strengthening, and its improper payment sampling and estimation plans and estimates for all programs that required an estimate for FY 2020 were not reliable.
We made nine recommendations, including that the Department ensure that the improper payment sampling and estimation plans for the Direct Loan, Pell, Emergency Impact Aid, Restart, and Emergency Assistance to Institutions of Higher Education programs are statistically valid and produce improper payment estimates that are statistically valid and reliable; and that it implement controls to ensure it uses quality data in its Direct Loan and Pell programs improper payment estimates, uses accurate and complete population sampling frames in its Emergency Impact Aid, Restart, and Emergency Assistance to Institutions of Higher Education programs’ improper payment estimates, and accurately and completely include all improper payments in its Restart program improper payment estimate.
Improper Payments
See other OIG reports on improper payments.