The objective of this statutory audit was to determine whether the Department complied with Payment Integrity Information Reporting Requirements for Fiscal Year 2022.
We found that the Department did not comply with the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) because it did not meet one of the six compliance requirements. Specifically, the Department reported improper payment and unknown payment estimates for the Title I, Special Education, and Education Stabilization Fund programs that exceeded 10 percent. We also determined that the Department’s improper payment and unknown payment estimates for five programs (Title I, Special Education, Education Stabilization Fund, Pell, and Direct Loan) were not reliable. Specifically, for the Title I and Special Education programs, the improper payment and unknown payment estimates were based on inaccurate sampling populations. For the Title I, Special Education, and Education Stabilization Fund programs, the Department’s testing results were inaccurate; and the improper payment sampling and estimation plan for the Pell and Direct Loan programs included nonrandom student-level sampling from some of the compliance audits FSA used to calculate the estimates, which affected the appropriateness of the confidence intervals used in the calculation of the improper payment and unknown payment estimates.
We made five recommendations, including that the Department submit a plan to the appropriate authorizing and appropriations committees of Congress (via the Office of Management and Budget Annual Data Call) describing actions the Department will take to bring the Title I, Special Education, and Education Stabilization Fund programs into compliance with the PIIA and additional program integrity proposals to Office of Management and Budget that describe how the proposals will help the Title I program become compliant with the PIIA. We also recommend that the Department develop sampling and estimation plans that produce reliable estimates for the Title I, Special Education, Pell, and Direct Loan programs; develop procedures to ensure that the improper payment and unknown payment estimates are produced from accurate sampling populations for the Title I and Special Education programs; and ensure the results that the Department records for its Title I, Special Education, and Education Stabilization Fund programs improper payment and unknown payment testing spreadsheets are accurate.
Improper Payments
See other OIG reports on improper payments.