Sneak Preview: OIGs Identify Grant Concerns as Top Management Challenge for 2020

(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Single Audit Information Service.) Several federal agency Offices of Inspector General (OIG) recently released their top management and performance challenges for 2020, and grant-related issues — particularly effective grantee monitoring or oversight — were among their key concerns.

Each year, in compliance with the Reports Consolidations Act of 2000 (Pub. L. 106-531), federal agency OIGs must issue a report summarizing what the office considers to be the most serious management challenges facing the agency.

At the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the largest federal grantmaking agency, one of the primary challenges listed in HHS OIG’s management challenges report is protecting the integrity of HHS grants. “HHS is responsible for providing up-to-date policies to grant recipients and helping states and other grantees address their own financial management and internal control issues,” HHS OIG stated. “Without proper internal controls, funds may be misspent, duplication of services may occur, and subrecipients may not be adequately monitored.”

Two particular HHS programs mentioned by the agency’s OIG as having concerns were the Office of Refugee Resettlement Unaccompanied Alien Children program, in which some grant recipients reported unallowable costs and lacked effective systems for administering program funds, and Child Care and Development Fund program, in which states did not appropriately oversee payments.

Further, while HHS must report improper payment rates for its risk-susceptible grant programs under the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (Pub. L. 107-300), as amended, OIG noted that HHS has not reported an improper payment estimate for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. While HHS has stated that it does not believe it has the statutory authority to collect from states the data necessary for calculating an improper payment rate for the TANF program, OIG argued that the Office of Management and Budget has identified TANF as a risk-susceptible program that must report estimated rates and amounts of improper payments. “HHS must continue to pursue needed legislative remedies to develop an appropriate methodology for measuring TANF payment accuracy and report an improper payment estimate for TANF,” HHS OIG explained.

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

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