Audit 399949

Federal Program: U.S. Department of Homeland Security – FEMA Assistance Listing Number: 97.036 - Disaster Grants - Public Assistance Passthrough Entity - Arkansas Department of Emergency Management Program Year: 2025 Criteria - Under 2 CFR 200.403 and 2 CFR 200.404, costs charged to federal awards must be necessary, reasonable, and adequately documented. In addition, FEMA Public Assistance guidance requires that force account labor costs be based on actual hours worked and actual compensation paid, and that such costs not be duplicated or otherwise unallowable. Condition – An employee payroll payment was reported twice as an eligible expenditure, resulting in a duplicate payment being charged to the grant. Cause - The duplicate payment resulted from human error, as accounting personnel inadvertently entered the same payment into the grant reporting system twice. Although controls exist, they were not sufficient in this instance to detect or prevent the duplicate reporting. Effect or potential effect - As a result of the duplicate request, unallowable payroll costs were charged to the FEMA grant. If not identified and corrected, such errors could lead to FEMA reimbursement of costs that do not represent actual, allowable labor expenditures and could result in repayment demands or reduced future reimbursement. Questioned Costs – Known error: $5,072; Total estimated error $57,703 Context - We selected a sample of 29 out of a population of 187 employee payroll expenditures charged to the grant. We noted 1 employee payroll expenditure was duplicated resulting in an error of $5,072. The sample value was $45,597 out of a population value of $518,914. The sampling methodology used is not, and is not intended to be, statistically valid. Recommendation - We recommend management strengthen payroll review and reconciliation procedures to ensure that payroll payments charged to federal grants are reviewed for accuracy and completeness prior to submission for reimbursement. Additional supervisory review or system based duplicate payment controls should be implemented to reduce the risk of similar errors in the future. Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Action: Management concurs with this finding. The duplicate request for reimbursement of a single payroll payment was an isolated clerical oversight. This specific error was not caught during the final review process prior to submission. Management recognizes the importance of accurate reporting and has already taken steps to ensure all future reimbursement requests are reconciled against previous submissions to prevent recurrence.