Review of the Small Business Administration’s State Trade and Export Promotion Grant Program

This evaluation report presents the results of our review of Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) State Trade and Export Promotion (STEP) Grant Program.  The Small Business Job Act of 2010 authorized the SBA to establish the STEP grant program as a 3-year pilot program to increase the number of eligible small business concerns in the states that export and increase the export value of those eligible small businesses that already export.  Our evaluation included reviewing STEP grant awards for fiscal years (FYs) 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2015 to determine how the funds for the STEP grant program were used.

We could not determine the exact amounts awarded and expended for the STEP grant program because of inconsistent financial data provided by SBA.  Specifically, the three program offices responsible for managing the STEP grant program reported different totals for the award and expenditure amounts.  Additionally, we found SBA did not report accurate and complete STEP grant program data in USAspending.gov.  We also found SBA implemented new reporting requirements for the FY 2014 STEP program that significantly improved the quality of the grant recipients’ performance and financial reports.  As a result, FYs 2014 and 2015 grant recipients provided performance and financial reports that identified the amount spent for each designated export activity as stated in the grant program announcement.  However, we were unable to determine how the grant recipients spent the funds in the first 2 years of the program, FYs 2011 and 2012, because SBA did not have defined program management procedures for the STEP grant program at that time.  Additionally, we determined that most of the grant recipients we reviewed did not expend all of their Federal funds awarded and identified over $1.1 million in unused funds.  The OIG made three recommendations to improve SBA’s oversight of the STEP grant program.  SBA’s management planned actions resolve all three recommendations.