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GAO-20-501PR 1 (2020-04-21)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaebaf0001 and id is 1 raw text is: c(AO U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 441 G St. N.W. Comptroller General Washington, DC 20548 of the United States April 21, 2020 Jovita Carranza Administrator U.S. Small Business Administration 409 3rd Street, SW Washington, D.C. 20416 Priority Open Recommendations: Small Business Administration Dear Ms. Carranza: The purpose of this letter is to provide an update on the overall status of the Small Business Administration's (SBA) implementation of GAO's recommendations and to call your personal attention to areas where open recommendations should be given high priority.1 In November 2019, we reported that on a government-wide basis, 77 percent of the recommendations we made 4 years ago were implemented.2 SBA's recommendation implementation rate was 78 percent. As of February 2020, SBA had 46 open recommendations. Fully implementing these open recommendations could significantly improve SBA's operations. Since our April 2019 letter, SBA has implemented two of our five open priority recommendations. To address our recommendation related to data tracking, SBA entered into an agreement with the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to share loan data, enabling SBA to analyze borrower characteristics for loan programs. SBA also took steps to collect unique client data from resource partners. To address our recommendation related to lender compliance with the requirement for lenders to only make SBA 7(a) loans to creditworthy small business borrowers who cannot obtain credit through a conventional lender at reasonable terms, SBA provided evidence that it had required reviewers to document their assessments of a lender's policies and practices. We ask your continued attention to the remaining three open priority recommendations. We also are adding five new recommendations related to improving disaster response, cybersecurity, and export promotion, bringing the total number of priority recommendations to eight. (See enclosure for the list of recommendations). The eight priority recommendations fall into the following four areas: Disaster response. Two recommendations would improve SBA's ability to respond to disasters. In February 2020, we recommended that SBA (1) identify and document risks associated with its disaster response and plans to mitigate these risks in its disaster planning documentation, and (2) identify the key elements of a disaster action plan and provide additional 1Priority recommendations are those that GAO believes warrant priority attention from heads of key departments or agencies. They are highlighted because, upon implementation, they may significantly improve government operation-for example, by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or making progress toward addressing a high-risk or duplication issue. 2GAO, Performance and Accountability Report.- Fiscal Year 2019, GAO-20-1 SP (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 19, 2019). GAO-20-501 PR SBA Priority Recommendations Page 1

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