Recommendation: To ensure effective and appropriate recovery of DI overpayments and administration of penalties and sanctions, the Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration should clarify its policy for assessing the reasonableness of expenses used in determining beneficiaries' repayment amounts to help ensure that withholding plans are consistently established across the agency and accurately reflect individuals' ability to pay.

Agency: Social Security Administration
Status: Open

Comments: As of June 2020, SSA reported taking a number of steps to address this recommendation. According to SSA, it updated its guidance in 2017 to help ensure that staff consistently process various requests from overpaid individuals. SSA also reported that it is taking additional steps to update instructions on how staff should consider whether expenses reported by individuals are reasonable when approving withholding plans. The agency expects these instructions to be complete by the end of fiscal year 2021. We will close this recommendation once SSA releases additional guidance on assessing the reasonableness of expenses.

Recommendation: To ensure effective and appropriate recovery of DI overpayments and administration of penalties and sanctions, the Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration should adjust the minimum withholding rate to 10 percent of monthly DI benefits to allow quicker recovery of debt.

Agency: Social Security Administration
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: SSA agreed with this recommendation and in 2017 estimated that this change would result in an additional $213 million in collections over a 5-year period. The fiscal year 2021 President's budget submission contained a legislative proposal to make this change, and budgets since 2017 have contained similar proposals. As of June 2020, SSA reported that it plans to continue to submit similar legislative proposals. SSA also included the proposal in its regulatory agenda, noting that the change can also be implemented via regulatory change. We will close this recommendation once SSA achieves resolution from Congress on its legislative proposal or from its own regulatory efforts.

Recommendation: To ensure effective and appropriate recovery of DI overpayments and administration of penalties and sanctions, the Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration should consider adjusting monthly withholding amounts according to cost of living adjustments or charging interest on debts being collected by withholding benefits. Should SSA determine that it is necessary to do so, it could pursue legislative authority to use recovery tools that it is currently unable to use.

Agency: Social Security Administration
Status: Open

Comments: Although SSA initially disagreed with this recommendation, the agency reassessed its response in June 2019 and decided to take additional actions. As of June 2020, SSA is developing a system to track debts (the Debt Management Product) which will have the ability to store, track, and apply interest and penalties to overpayment debts. SSA also reports that it is seeking a regulatory change to clarify procedures to charge interest on debts. While SSA is pursuing these measures to position itself to charge interest on debts, the agency has not yet decided whether it will ultimately do so. We will close this recommendation once SSA makes a decision on how to proceed with charging interest on overpayment debts.

Recommendation: To enhance State's efforts to protect SWT participants from abuse and the SWT program from misuse, the Secretary of State should direct the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs to establish a mechanism to ensure that sponsors provide complete and consistent lists of fees that participants must pay.

Agency: Department of State
Status: Open

Comments: In response to our recommendation that the State Department (State) establish a mechanism to ensure that sponsor provide complete and consistent lists of fees that exchange visitors on the Summer Work Travel program must pay, State acknowledged it collected such fee information in 2016. As July 18, 2018, we are awaiting State's review and analysis of this information to ensure the price lists are consistent and comprehensive, as well as published guidance it is sending to sponsors on how fee and cost information must be listed on their websites so that there will be consistency among sponsors. State indicated its fee study will take place in 2019 to cover the period of 2018. As of August 2020, State indicated that it planned to complete the fee study following final Summer Work Travel rule, pending OMB approval.

Recommendation: To enhance State's efforts to protect SWT participants from abuse and the SWT program from misuse, the Secretary of State should direct the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs to establish a mechanism to ensure that information about these participant fees is made publicly available.

Agency: Department of State
Status: Open

Comments: In response to our recommendation that the State Department (State) establish a mechanism to ensure that information about Summer Work Travel participant fees is made publicly available, State noted that it had published a notice for proposed rulemaking on January 12, 2017. When finalized, this would require each sponsor to include in its recruiting material, and post on its main Web site (e.g., with a visible link to such a page on the sponsors homepage), examples of the typical monthly budgets of exchange visitors placed in various regions of the United States to illustrate wages (based on the required weekly minimum of 32-hours of work at a typical host placement) balanced against itemized fees and estimated costs. Until State finalizes this rule, they cannot enforce this requirement. State anticipated releasing the final rule in the middle of 2019, pending OMB approval. As of August 2020 State has not issued a final rule; and OMB approval is still pending.

Recommendation: To enhance State's efforts to protect SWT participants from abuse and the SWT program from misuse, the Secretary of State should direct the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs to establish detailed criteria that will allow State to assess the sufficiency and appropriateness of opportunities for cultural activities outside the workplace that sponsors provide to SWT participants.

Agency: Department of State
Status: Open

Comments: In response to our recommendation that the State Department (State) establish detailed criteria that will allow it to assess the sufficiency and appropriateness of opportunities for cultural activities outside the workplace that sponsors provide to Summer Work Travel participants, State published a notice for proposed rulemaking on January 12, 2017. When finalized, this would require sponsors and their host entities to create cultural opportunities at least once per month. The proposed rule also notes that State will issue guidance outlining best practices for cross-cultural programming. As of August 2020 this is not finalized.

Recommendation: To strengthen Education's oversight of accreditors through the recognition review process, the Secretary of Education should draw upon accreditor data to determine whether accreditors are consistently applying and enforcing their standards to ensure that the education offered by schools is of sufficient quality. For example, Education could systematically use available information related to the frequency of accreditor sanctions or could do additional analyses, such as comparing accreditor sanction data with Education's information on student outcomes, to inform its recognition reviews.

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open

Comments: Education agreed with this recommendation, noting that it is committed to identifying ways to use data about and from accreditors in its oversight. As of December 2017, Education has taken steps to track the number of accreditor sanctions issued by each accrediting agency. Education previously noted that this information will then be used to focus their limited resources on those accrediting agencies with extremely low or high sanction rates, to strengthen its oversight of accreditors. In April 2018, Education reported that it tracks accreditor sanctions and is aware of the number of sanctions when conducting agency reviews. They found no correlation between the number of sanctions an accrediting agency levies against its accredited institutions and compliance or noncompliance with the Criteria for Recognition, so they noted that this is not a useful tool. However, we continue to believe that implementing the recommendation could help inform Education's reviews of accreditors and ultimately reduce potential risk to students and federal funds. For example, analyses of accreditor sanction data could help reveal patterns in individual accreditor behavior and overall trends in sanctions. In addition, as we noted in the report, Education could compare accreditor sanction data with outcome data for accreditors' member institutions. These analyses could help Education determine how to better use data in decision-making, which is a goal listed in their 2014 strategic plan (cited in the report), as well as help to identify potential risks the accreditors might face. To close this recommendation, Education should show that it uses sanction data to inform its discussions of accreditor recognition and oversight.