Audit 15892

Finding - Contrary to Federal regulations, the District under allocated Title I Program funds totaling $905,329 to 15 schools. Criteria - Title 34, Section 200.78, Code of Federal Regulations, requires the District to allocate Title I schoolwide program funds to schools identified as eligible and selected to participate, in rank order, on the basis of the total number of children from low-income families in each school. The District is not required to allocate the same per-pupil amount (PPA) to each participating school provided that it allocates higher PPAs to schools with higher concentrations of poverty than to schools with lower concentrations of poverty. Condition - The District annually applies for Title I Program funding and the application includes a budget and an eligibility survey to document the amounts budgeted per participating school. During the 2022-23 fiscal year, the District expended $6,754,190 from the Title I Program, including $5,517,453 expended for the District’s 16 elementary, middle, and high schools. As part of our audit, we requested for examination District records supporting the budget allocation amounts to the 16 schools and final budget amounts evidencing the allocations were provided. However, District records indicated that the ranking of all 16 District Title I schools did not agree with the ranking based on the percent of students from low-income families. Specifically, 15 schools with poverty concentrations ranging from 52.13 to 83.17 percent were allocated and received $16,835 to $202,116 less per pupil funding than a school with a lower poverty concentration of 46.80 percent. Cause - The District experienced changes in key personnel and had not established effective procedures for monitoring Title I budgets at participating schools. Effect -Educational services at the 15 District schools under allocated Title I Program funds totaling $905,329 were not funded at required levels. In response to our inquiries, District personnel concurred with the calculated questioned costs. Recommendation - The District should establish procedures for ensuring and documenting that Title I Program resources are properly allocated to schools. In addition, the District should provide documentation to the FDOE supporting the allowability of the questioned costs totaling $905,329 or allocate that amount to the applicable underfunded Title I schools. District Response - Title I rank and serve budgets are based on the original/final budgets. The total budget per school should never change and should match the rank and serve allocation. Because of staff turnover in Federal Programs, Business Operations, and Finance, the District was unable to ensure the schools remained in rank and serve order for 2022-2023. An error was made during the year-end budget cleanup, which changed the schools’ original budget. Budget revisions were done, to the Title I budget, to clean up negatives and bring major function object positive at year-end. The entry should have been done within the individual school budgets so the total budget would match the original/final budget. If this entry had not been done, the rank and serve allocations would match to the original budget. Previously, the District has monitored the program correctly and has maintained the District’s rank and serve order. The District will provide training and guidance to the new staff overseeing the grant and the budget allocations to ensure and enforce rank and serve order is maintained going forward. The District has reached out to DOE for guidance on correcting the finding and will follow up with Sean Freeman in the audit resolution and monitoring department once the audit report is published.

Finding - Contrary to Federal regulations, the District under allocated Title I Program funds totaling $905,329 to 15 schools. Criteria - Title 34, Section 200.78, Code of Federal Regulations, requires the District to allocate Title I schoolwide program funds to schools identified as eligible and selected to participate, in rank order, on the basis of the total number of children from low-income families in each school. The District is not required to allocate the same per-pupil amount (PPA) to each participating school provided that it allocates higher PPAs to schools with higher concentrations of poverty than to schools with lower concentrations of poverty. Condition - The District annually applies for Title I Program funding and the application includes a budget and an eligibility survey to document the amounts budgeted per participating school. During the 2022-23 fiscal year, the District expended $6,754,190 from the Title I Program, including $5,517,453 expended for the District’s 16 elementary, middle, and high schools. As part of our audit, we requested for examination District records supporting the budget allocation amounts to the 16 schools and final budget amounts evidencing the allocations were provided. However, District records indicated that the ranking of all 16 District Title I schools did not agree with the ranking based on the percent of students from low-income families. Specifically, 15 schools with poverty concentrations ranging from 52.13 to 83.17 percent were allocated and received $16,835 to $202,116 less per pupil funding than a school with a lower poverty concentration of 46.80 percent. Cause - The District experienced changes in key personnel and had not established effective procedures for monitoring Title I budgets at participating schools. Effect -Educational services at the 15 District schools under allocated Title I Program funds totaling $905,329 were not funded at required levels. In response to our inquiries, District personnel concurred with the calculated questioned costs. Recommendation - The District should establish procedures for ensuring and documenting that Title I Program resources are properly allocated to schools. In addition, the District should provide documentation to the FDOE supporting the allowability of the questioned costs totaling $905,329 or allocate that amount to the applicable underfunded Title I schools. District Response - Title I rank and serve budgets are based on the original/final budgets. The total budget per school should never change and should match the rank and serve allocation. Because of staff turnover in Federal Programs, Business Operations, and Finance, the District was unable to ensure the schools remained in rank and serve order for 2022-2023. An error was made during the year-end budget cleanup, which changed the schools’ original budget. Budget revisions were done, to the Title I budget, to clean up negatives and bring major function object positive at year-end. The entry should have been done within the individual school budgets so the total budget would match the original/final budget. If this entry had not been done, the rank and serve allocations would match to the original budget. Previously, the District has monitored the program correctly and has maintained the District’s rank and serve order. The District will provide training and guidance to the new staff overseeing the grant and the budget allocations to ensure and enforce rank and serve order is maintained going forward. The District has reached out to DOE for guidance on correcting the finding and will follow up with Sean Freeman in the audit resolution and monitoring department once the audit report is published.