SBA's Management of Voluntary Early Retirement Authority and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment Program

This audit report presents the results of our audit of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) management of the fiscal year (FY) 2014 Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment (VSIP) program.  VERA provides agencies the option to offer voluntary early retirement when restructuring as well as when downsizing.  VSIP, often combined with VERA, allows agencies to offer lump-sum payments to employees who are in surplus positions or have skills that are no longer needed in the workforce, as an incentive to separate.  Our objective was to determine whether SBA accomplished its FY 2014 VERA-VSIP program goals. 

We found that while SBA made limited progress in restructuring and reshaping the workforce, it did not accomplish its stated goals of the VERA-VSIP program.  As a result, SBA paid $2.1 million for early retirements for positions that were not restructured following VERA-VSIP.  Overall, SBA may have been more successful in achieving its goals had it properly managed the VERA-VSIP program by developing specific and measureable VERA-VSIP goals, including accurate information in the VERA-VSIP plan, making significant changes to its organizational structure, and making substantial changes to job functions following VERA-VSIP.  OIG made two recommendations to improve SBA’s management of its VERA-VSIP program.  SBA’s management planned actions resolve the two recommendations.