Audit of U.S. Agency for Global Media FY 2022 Compliance With Payment Integrity Requirements

AUD-FM-IB-23-19

May 2023

Report Contents

What OIG Audited
In FY 2022, improper and unknown federal payments government-wide totaled approximately $247 billion. The Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) requires Inspectors General to annually determine whether agencies complied with the act and establishes requirements for agencies that are deemed noncompliant.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this audit to determine whether the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) complied with PIIA for FY 2022. As part of this objective, OIG also evaluated USAGM’s efforts to prevent and reduce improper and unknown payments.

What OIG Recommends
OIG concluded that USAGM complied with payment integrity requirements for FY 2022; therefore, OIG is not offering any recommendations. USAGM’s response to a draft of this report is reprinted in its entirety in Appendix B.

What OIG Found
For the FY 2022 reporting period, OIG found that USAGM complied with payment integrity requirements, as presented in Table 1.

Payment Integrity Criteria: Compliance Published payment integrity information with the annual financial statement and in accompanying materials. Yes Posted the annual financial statement and accompanying materials on the agency website. Yes Conducted risk assessments.Yes Concluded whether each program is likely to make improper and unknown payments above or below the statutory threshold. Yes Published improper and unknown payment estimates.*N/A Published corrective action plans.* N/A Published reduction targets.* N/A Demonstrated improvements to payment integrity or reached a tolerable rate.* N/A Developed a plan to meet reduction target.* N/A Reported estimate less than 10 percent for each program with a published estimate.* N/A *Criterion did not apply because no program was determined to be at significant risk for improper payments. Source: Prepared by OIG using criteria from Office of Management and Budget Circular A-123, Appendix C. — Table 1: Compliance With PIIA Criteria

Specifically, OIG found that USAGM published on its website the FY 2022 financial statement and accompanying materials, which included all applicable payment integrity information. In addition, USAGM conducted program-specific risk assessments and made appropriate conclusions related to the risk assessments. The programs subject to risk assessments during FY 2022 were found to be in compliance with PIIA requirements and are presented in Tables 1 and 2 in the Audit Results section of this report.

With respect to USAGM’s efforts to prevent and reduce improper and unknown payments, OIG did not identify any needed improvements involving improper and unknown payments determination, the associated estimation methodology, or actions necessary to improve prevention and reduction of improper and unknown payments.

Report Terms