The objective of our inspection was to determine (1) whether selected institutions receiving funds under the Institutional Portion of Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) met public reporting requirements and (2) the reported usage of the Institutional Portion of HEERF by selected institutions.
Our inspection found that 81 of the 100 institutions included in our review complied with Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) Institutional Portion reporting requirements. We noted that 80 of the institutions posted reports on their websites; however, we were unable to locate Institutional Portion reports anywhere on the websites associated with 19 of the 100 institutions. These 19 institutions had drawn down over $5.5 million out of almost $29 million awarded to these institutions under the Institutional Portion of HEERF as of September 30, 2020.
We made one suggestion specific to anomalies we noted regarding awards and recipient identifiers that we brought to the Department’s attention, and suggested they review the anomalies and take corrective action as warranted.
Implementing Pandemic Relief Laws
This is one of several reports the OIG has issued involving HEERF. See related reports on our Pandemic Relief page.