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Outside Employment Related to Small Business Administration Loans

Report Information

Date Issued
Report Type
Audit
Description
Our office, through a partnership with the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, obtained data from the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) related to their Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. We scheduled this audit after identifying potential matches between the SBA data and TVA employees. Our audit objective was to determine if TVA’s policies and procedures are effective in assuring outside employment of TVA employees is properly approved. Our audit scope was limited to TVA employees identified as having potential outside employment or business ownership through review of EIDL and PPP loan data received from the SBA. We found TVA’s policies and procedures are not effective in assuring outside employment of TVA employees is properly approved. Specifically, we found TVA employees are not consistently submitting their outside employment or business ownership on TVA Form 15570 prior to accepting outside employment or opening a business. In addition, we found TVA’s (1) review for potential conflicts of interest and (2) application of 5 CFR § 7901 requirements could be improved. We also found (1) the TVA Forms 15570 on file were not updated as required and (2) roles and responsibilities in the outside employment approval process could be clarified.
Joint Report
Yes
Participating OIG
Tennessee Valley Authority OIG
Agency Wide
Yes (agency-wide)
Questioned Costs
$0
Funds for Better Use
$0
View report on Oversight.gov

Recommendations

We recommend TVA’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel obtain a TVA Form 15570 for all employees identified during the audit with actual outside employment or business ownership.

We recommend TVA’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel annually inform TVA employees of the requirement to file a TVA Form 15570 through Ethics training or some other form of communication.

We recommend TVA’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, reinforce requirements regarding approval for outside employment with TVA’s HR organization.

We recommend TVA’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel formally document procedures to be followed during the TVA Form 15570 review and (a) include a review of vendor invoice payments to determine if TVA does business with the entity and (b) maintain evidence of the procedures performed.

We recommend TVA’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel modify TVA Form 15570 to include evidence of review by the Director, Ethics and Compliance.