Audit 403050

Non-Federal entities must establish and maintain effective internal controls over Federal awards that provide reasonable assurance that the non-Federal entity is managing Federal awards in compliance with Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Federal award. During fiscal year 2025, the District participated in Child Nutrition Cluster programs, for which the federal government reimburses the District for eligible children. The District was initially approved for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) at the beginning of fiscal year 2025, however as a result of a CEP audit conducted by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce Office of Nutrition, during fiscal year 2025 the District's status was changed from CEP to Provision 2. Under Provision 2, since fiscal year 2025 was the base year, the District was required to collect and process free and reduced meal applications. The District accepted applications for free and reduced meals, with which eligibility was determined based on several factors, including, but not limited to family size and income. For fiscal year 2025, the eligibility process was 100% online through PaySchools to determine eligibility for free and reduced meals. The option selected within PaySchools by the District was for the portal applications uploaded from RocketScan to be approved as entered (if the eligibility criteria was met) with no additional review, rather than applications being in pending status until reviewed and approved by the District. As such, the District had no procedures in place to ensure the system determined the proper eligibility status based on the information provided in the application. Failure to implement controls over all eligibility applications could result in ineligible students receiving benefits. The District should implement control procedures for online applications to help ensure students are properly marked as paid, free or reduced.