Restaurant Revitalization Fund

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Program level Payment Integrity results

Sponsoring agency: Small Business Administration

View on Federal Program Inventory

PROGRAM METRICS

$28,600 M

in FY 2024 outlays, with a

69.7%

payment accuracy rate

  • Improper payment estimates over time
    View as:

    Chart toggle amounts:
    Proper payments
    Overpayment
    Underpayment
    Technically improper
    Unknown

Payment Integrity results

  • FY 2024 improper payment estimates

    Chart legend and breakdown

    Payment accuracy rate

    Improper payment rate

    Unknown payment rate


    Sampling & estimation methodology details

    Sampling timeframe:

    05/2021 - 03/2023


    Confidence interval:

    95% to <100%


    Margin of error:

    +/-0.0

  • Actions taken & planned to mitigate improper payments

    Mitigation strategy Description of the corrective action Completion date Status
    Training
    This program ended in June 2021. There was no funding for this program in FY2024, no disbursements will be made in FY2025. SBA does not have any planned actions to improve program integrity that are specific to this program. None of the choices provided apply to SBA's corrective actions related to this program. Nevertheless, a choice of action is required. Training is selected as it most closely matches the actions SBA has taken with its other programs. This program has ended.
    FY2024 Q1
    Completed
    Training
    This program ended in June 2021. There was no funding for this program in FY2024, no disbursements will be made in FY2025. SBA does not have any planned actions to improve program integrity that are specific to this program. None of the choices provided apply to SBA's corrective actions related to this program. Nevertheless, a choice and date of action are required. Training is selected as it most closely matches the actions SBA has taken with its other programs, and the date is FY2025. This program has ended.
    FY2025
    Planned

Overpayments

SBA noted five awards with improper over-payments totalling $71,708.00. In each of the awards where an improper payment was noted, the recipient was eligible; however, the amount of the award was calculated incorrectly.
Overpayment root cause Overpayment amount
Amount of overpayments within the agency's control $0.07 M
Amount of overpayments that occurred because the data/information needed to validate payment accuracy prior to making a payment does not exist $0.0 M
The amount of overpayments that occurred because of an inability to access the data/information needed to validate payment accuracy prior to making a payment $0.0 M
The amount of overpayments that occurred because of a failure to access data/information needed to validate payment accuracy prior to making a payment $0.07 M

Overpayment root cause Overpayment amount
Amount of overpayments outside the agency's control $0.0 M

Overpayment type Eligibility element/information needed Eligibility amount
Overpayments Within Agency Control Financial $0.07 M

Overpayment type Mitigation strategies taken Mitigation strategies planned
Overpayments within the agency’s control Training Training

Underpayments

Underpayment root cause Underpayment amount
Amount of underpayments $0.0 M

Technically improper payments

The amount of improper payments that were paid to the right recipient for the correct amount but were considered technically improper because of failure to follow statute or regulation $0.0 M

Additional information

$0 M

Unknown Payment Details

At the time of this writing, the SBA had not completed its review of 122 awards of the 384 awards in the sample of awards originated in FY2021. However, for 53 of the 122 Awards, SBA had collected enough information and completed a significant portion of the reviews to be able to identify that an improper payment is likely. For 31 of the 122 Awards, the error stemmed from an Award calculation error. For 20 of the 122 Awards, the error stemmed from an eligibility issue.

The amount of payments that could either be proper or improper but the agency is unable to determine whether they were proper or improper as a result of insufficient or lack of documentation is $8,670.72 M


Cause of insufficient or lack of documentation & why the documentation is needed for determination of payment type
Payment cause Amount Description of the documentation that was not provided and explanation of why the program is unable to conclude whether the payment is proper or improper without that documentation
Other $8,670.72 M At the time of this writing, the SBA had not completed its review of 122 awards of the 384 awards in the sample of awards originated in FY2021. However, for 53 of the 122 Awards, SBA had collected enough information and completed a significant portion of the reviews to be able to identify that an improper payment is likely. For 31 of the 122 Awards, the error stemmed from an Award calculation error. For 20 of the 122 Awards, the error stemmed from an eligibility issue.

Mitigation strategies taken Mitigation strategies planned
Training Training

Evaluation of corrective actions

This program ended in June 2021. No additional RRF disbursements were made in FY2024, and none will be made in FY2025. As such, SBA has not established a corrective action plan specific to this program.

This program ended in June 2021. No additional RRF disbursements were made in FY2024, and none will be made in FY2025. As such, SBA has not established a corrective action plan specific to this program.

This program ended in June 2021. No additional RRF disbursements were made in FY2024, and none will be made in FY2025. As such, SBA has not established a corrective action plan specific to this program.

This program ended in June 2021. No additional RRF disbursements were made in FY2024, and none will be made in FY2025. As such, SBA has not established a corrective action plan specific to this program.

Future payment integrity outlook

Restaurant Revitalization Fund has established a baseline.

The RRF program ended on June 30, 2021. FY 2024 improper payment rate estimates encompassed all disbursements for the program. There was no funding for this program in FY2024, no disbursements will be made in FY2025, and therefore no improper payment rates will be extrapolated. Further, SBA has not set a reduction target, as this program has ended.

The program's current year improper payment and unknown payment rate of 30.32 % may or may not be the tolerable rate. The agency has not yet determined the tolerable rate for this program.

The RRF program ended on June 30, 2021. FY 2024 improper payment rate estimates encompassed all disbursements for the program. There was no funding for this program in FY2024, no disbursements will be made in FY2025, and therefore no improper payment rates will be extrapolated. Further, SBA has not set a reduction target or a tolerable rate range, as this program has ended.

The agency has what is needed with respect to internal controls, human capital and information system and other infrastructure.

No additional resources were requested in the most recent budget submission of the agency to establish and maintain payment integrity.

Additional programmatic information

The RRF program was designed to provide emergency financial assistance to eligible restaurants, bars, and other qualifying businesses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In total the program provided 100,745 grants to eligible program participants, of which 99.83% of those grants were approved and processed between the period May 10, 2021, to June 30, 2021. The remaining disbursements were processed between the period April 1, 2022, through March 31, 2023. The SBA leverages separate sampling and estimation methodologies for each of the distinct RRF disbursement periods and combines the results of the two estimates to derive improper and unknown payment estimates for the program.

For RRF grant reviews, sample cases were chosen using PPS Sampling with replacement from all disbursements during the period May 10, 2021, through June 30, 2021. This population was divided into five strata based on their review tier. The SBA determined the appropriate total sample size to be 384 awards from this population. Additionally, a census sample was drawn for all disbursements during the period April 1, 2022, through March 31, 2023. The combined samples included aggregate outlays of $461,969,300 and an absolute value of improper payments of $71,708 within the samples.

Because the improper and unknown payments were calculated from FY2022 and FY2023 rates and estimates, the program’s rates listed here apply to FY2022 and FY2023, and do not apply to FY2024. The estimated program improper payment rate for the RRF grant population is 0.0003 percent. The program’s Unknown payment rate for the period was 30.32 percent. At the time of this writing, the SBA had not completed its review of 122 awards of the 384 awards in the sample of awards originated in FY2021. However, for 53 of the 122 Awards, SBA had collected enough information and completed a significant portion of the reviews to be able to identify that an improper payment is likely. For 31 of the 122 Awards, the error stemmed from an Award calculation error. For 20 of the 122 Awards, the error stemmed from an eligibility issue. SBA does not see intent on the part of the Awardees to commit fraud for these 51 Awards. In conducting these Post Award Reviews, SBA has only seen an indication of potential fraud in 4 Awards.

The RRF program ended on June 30, 2021. FY 2024 improper payment rate estimates encompassed all disbursements for the program. There was no funding for this program in FY2024, no disbursements will be made in FY2025, and therefore no improper payment rates will be extrapolated.

Accountability for detecting, preventing, and recovering improper payments

Review standards are established as part of the agency's annual appraisal process. These standards hold managers accountable for meeting applicable reduction targets, preventing improper payments, and promptly detecting and recovering overpayments. Nevertheless, this program ended in June 2021.