Sneak Preview: OIG Urges ED To Assess HEERF Reporting Concerns

The following was excerpted from a recent Thompson Grants 360 article.) The Department of Education (ED) Office of Inspector General (OIG), in a recent audit report, found numerous reporting inconsistencies and errors from recipients of Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) monies, and requested that ED’s Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) take corrective actions to address these concerns.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act (Pub. L. 116-136), under section 18004, provides $31 billion to ED for an Education Stabilization Fund to prevent, prepare for and respond to COVID-19, domestically or internationally, including $17 billion for state and local agencies and more than $14 billion for the HEERF program.

Of that $14 billion, $13 billion was allocated under HEERF section 18004(a)(1). Fifty percent of these funds was reserved to provide students with emergency financial aid grants to help cover expenses related to the disruption of campus operations due to the pandemic (i.e., the student aid portion), while 40% covered any costs associated with significant changes to the delivery of instruction caused by the pandemic (i.e., the institutional portion). Another 7.5% of HEERF funding ― $1 billion under section 18004(a)(2) ― went to grants for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities and other Minority-Serving Institutions. Lastly, the final 2.5% in HEERF funds ― $349 million under section 18004(a)(3) ― provided additional funds for institutions to prioritize schools that received less than $500,000 under other parts of section 18004 to bring their award amounts up to $500,000.

Section 18004(e) of the CARES Act requires recipient institutions to submit quarterly reports to ED on the use of their HEERF funds. The first report was due Oct. 30, 2020, covering the period from the first award through Sept. 30, 2020. Recipients also must post these quarterly reports as links on their own websites. OIG’s audit reviewed whether a sample of 100 recipients of the institutional portion of HEERF met the agency’s requirements in these Oct. 30, 2020, reports.

OIG found that 81 of the 100 institutions in the sample that received section 18004(a)(1) funding complied with the institutional portion reporting requirements by posting their reports on their websites as of Oct. 31, 2020. OIG, however, said it could not locate the institutional reports anywhere on the websites of the other 19 recipients. Meanwhile, in a separate, concurrent HEERF review related to institutional use of HEERF funds, OIG identified four other high-risk institutions that had not posted their quarterly institutional reports. (These high-risk institutions were on ED’s Federal Student Aid’s quarterly heightened cash monitoring report dated Sept. 1, 2020; had minimal grant experience; and/or were awarded more than $1 million in HEERF combined institutional and student aid funds).

(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)

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