Audit 404866

Finding 2025-001: Allowable Costs/Cost Principles – Significant Deficiency in Internal Control over Compliance Program: 16.575 – U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crimes: Passed-through Texas Office of the Governor, Criminal Justice Division (CJD) Crime Victim Assistance Criteria: The 2 CFR section 200.303 requires that non-Federal entities receiving Federal awards establish and maintain internal control over the Federal awards that provides reasonable assurance that the non-Federal entity is managing the Federal awards in compliance with Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Federal award. Condition: During our audit, we noted that unallowable payroll costs were charged to the grant. Cause: Controls were not in place to verify the accuracy of payroll amounts charged to the grant. Effect or Potential Effect: Payroll costs charged to the grant exceeded actual costs incurred by staff administering the grant. Questioned Costs: Amount is below the threshold of $25,000. Context: During our testing of payroll amounts charged to the grant, we selected a sample size of 8 payroll amounts and identified 2 instances where the grant was not charged in accordance with actual time spent on administering the grant per the employees’ time sheets. Recommendation: A policy should be established and enforced to require secondary review of costs to be charged to the grant prior to entry into the accounting software and inclusion in requests for reimbursement that are submitted to granting agencies. Repeat Finding: No. Views of Responsible Officials: Management agrees with the audit finding and a response is included in the corrective action plan.