Established in March 2020 by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) is a Committee of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). The PRAC aims to safeguard the Federal Government’s more than $5 trillion in emergency aid to individuals, businesses, and State, local, and Tribal governments nationwide and identify significant risks that cut across program and agency boundaries.
GrantSolutions has been actively working to support the PRAC’s mission of preventing fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in Federal programs related to the coronavirus response.
Under the CARES Act, the Department of the Treasury Office of Inspector General (OIG) was assigned to monitor and oversee the receipt, disbursement, and use of Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) payments. GrantSolutions worked with the Treasury OIG to develop a customized and user-friendly reporting solution to capture the use of CRF payments from recipients. The collected data is then provided to the PRAC, which publishes the information on its website per Section 15010 of the CARES Act.
In May of 2022, the PRAC released its Semiannual Report to Congress. Highlights from the report include:
- A review of more than 40 reports from 16 states to identify common challenges they faced with pandemic unemployment insurance programs.
- An additional 41 reports from state and local watchdogs so the public and policymakers can see a complete inventory of what federal, state, and local agencies have found.
- A study of 51,000 pandemic-related awards worth $347 billion, PRAC found that 30% of those awards had meaningless descriptions that reduced transparency into $33 billion of funds used.
- Twenty-nine of the PRAC’s members issued 79 reports with 184 recommendations and $9.8 billion in monetary findings.
- Launching the Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence (PACE), which provides analytical and investigative support to the oversight committee.
GrantSolutions is glad to support the PRAC’s mission and the important work they do to safeguard Federal coronavirus relief funds. The PRAC continues to provide a model for effective, coordinated government oversight and is building a legacy for how the Inspector General community manages future large-scale government relief efforts.
