Federal Reports

The Payment Integrity Information Act (PIIA) requires agencies to annually review and identify programs and activities that may be susceptible to significant improper payments, estimate the improper payment rates in agency programs, and report on their actions to reduce and recover those payments. For FY 2024, AmeriCorps met eight of ten PIIA compliance requirements. We made three findings relating to the two remaining requirements.  We found that: (1) AmeriCorps reported an improper payment rate above the ten percent compliance threshold for one program, the Foster Grandparent Program (FGP); (2) AmeriCorps’ published improper payment estimates for AmeriCorps State and National (ASN) and FGP are not accurate, reliable, or consistent with OMB guidance; and (3) AmeriCorps’ published improper payment estimates for the National Service Trust (NST) are not accurate, reliable, or consistent with OMB guidance. AmeriCorps concurred with the first finding and agreed to continue to develop and implement actions to reduce improper payment rates below ten percent. AmeriCorps did not concur with our second and third findings. We made six new recommendations related to our second and third findings in this report on unmatched reporting errors, payments to ineligible recipients, and published improper payment estimates for the NST. AmeriCorps declined to implement all six recommendations. We will keep open the two prior year recommendations related to the first finding until AmeriCorps submits documentation to demonstrate the completion and sufficiency of the corrective actions. The six recommendations related to the second and third findings will remain open and be classified as unresolved (disagreed) in our Semiannual Report to Congress.

HUD’s Office of Single Family Housing did not consistently monitor its Field Service Management (FSM) contractors’ property preservation and protection services.  Specifically, HUD provided inconsistent monitoring for 34 of the 79 statistically sampled records we reviewed, and these involved discrepancies between HUD’s assessment, the support, and the performance work statement.  HUD did not develop and apply a clear and uniform review framework to ensure that its process and procedures provided for effective FSM contract monitoring.  As a result, HUD (1) cannot ensure its REO inventory is being maintained in an adequate condition and (2) is not aware of whether contracting actions are needed to address deficient performance.  

We recommend that HUD (1) develop and implement uniform procedures for the FSM desk monitoring review, including a second level review for the FSM monitoring reviews and process for each inspection type; (2) update the FSM monitoring plan and FSM qualitative monitoring database to (a) clearly define the monitoring questions, (b) include a section for Q7 New Not Ready to Show properties, (c) define which routine inspection reports will be reviewed to conduct the routine inspection monitoring reviews and (d) develop a monitoring question to evaluate photo date stamps; and (3) ensure that program officials periodically provide all FSM CORs and staff involved in the monitoring process uniform property inspection training.

OIG reviewed USDA’s compliance with improper payment and high-dollar overpayment requirements for FY 2024.

The FCC OIG’s audit concluded that FCC was compliant with respect to 10 Phase 1 programs and one Phase 2 program. However, FCC was non-compliant with PIIA overall because for two of the 13 assessed FCC programs (the USF-LL and the USF-HC Legacy programs), FCC complied with nine of the 10 required PIIA criteria.  The FCC OIG issued three findings and offered eight recommendations to improve FCC’s PIIA reporting.