Page 1 GAO-25-108048
Comptroller General
of the United States
May 1, 2025
The Honorable Kelly Loeffler
Administrator
U.S. Small Business Administration
409 3rd St., SW
Washington, DC 20416
Priority Open Recommendations: Small Business Administration
Dear Administrator Loeffler:
Congratulations on your appointment. The purpose of this letter is to call your personal attention
to three areas based on GAO’s past work and 17 open priority recommendations, which are
enclosed.
1
Additionally, there are 38 other GAO open recommendations that we will continue to
work with your staff to address.
We are highlighting the following areas that warrant your timely and focused attention.
Specifically:
Improving oversight and communication related to lessons learned from the COVID-19
pandemic response. From March 2020 through March 2022, the Small Business
Administration (SBA) provided more than $1 trillion in loans and grants to small businesses
through pandemic relief programs. SBA moved quickly and under challenging circumstances to
develop and launch these programs. However, rapid implementation increased the risk of
improper payments—that is, payments that should not have been made or were made in
incorrect amounts, including those resulting from fraud. GAO added SBA’s emergency loans for
small businesses to its High-Risk List in 2021.
Our prior work found potential weaknesses in SBA’s communication with applicants and its
oversight of pandemic relief programs, and our priority recommendations call for SBA to
address these issues. For example, we recommended that SBA develop a comprehensive
strategy for communicating with potential and actual program applicants during future disasters
to help reduce applicant confusion. Subsequently, we recommended that SBA develop cross-
program data analytics to better identify applicants attempting to defraud multiple programs and
obtain external data to help verify applicant information and detect potential fraud.
While SBA has taken steps to address these recommendations, fully implementing them could
help the agency more strategically manage fraud risks in ongoing and future programs.
1
GAO considers a recommendation to be a priority if, when implemented, it may significantly improve government
operations—for example, by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or making
progress toward addressing a high-risk or duplication issue.
