The SCORE Association’s Disaster Technical Assistance Grant

This report presents the results of our audit on Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) oversight of the Hurricane Sandy technical assistance grant awarded to the SCORE Association (SCORE).  The Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 gave the SBA’s Office of Entrepreneurial Development (OED) $19 million to provide technical assistance to small businesses recovering from Hurricane Sandy.  Using these funds, OED awarded grants to its resource partners in two phases.  We audited the $840,000 grant SBA awarded to SCORE for Phase 1 to determine whether SCORE complied with grant requirements related to Federal expenditures and program performance.

We found that SCORE did not always comply with financial grant requirements.  Consequently, we questioned costs totaling over $391,000, or 47 percent, of SCORE’s Hurricane Sandy grant.  We also found that SBA exempted SCORE from submitting two types of required reports on a quarterly basis, and instead, allowed these reports to be submitted at the end of the Sandy grant period.  The notice of award and program announcement required SCORE to submit (1) financial reports (SF 425, Federal Financial Report, and accompanying budget justification worksheets), which provide information on funds spent and the unobligated amounts remaining in the grant, and (2) program performance reports, which provide information on the status of grant-funded activities.  Instead, SBA received from SCORE one financial report and individual state level performance reports.  OIG made 12 recommendations to improve SBA’s oversight of the financial management of SCORE.  SBA’s management planned actions resolve 4 of our 12 recommendations.