2023-006
Management Response: Management respectfully disagrees with this Finding.
• Under Condition, the finding states, “Time and effort is being tracked and maintained by employees, including hours charged to the specific efforts for the programs.…” This is not accurate. Employees report th...
2023-006
Management Response: Management respectfully disagrees with this Finding.
• Under Condition, the finding states, “Time and effort is being tracked and maintained by employees, including hours charged to the specific efforts for the programs.…” This is not accurate. Employees report their time worked each day, including the amount of time they worked on different projects if applicable. Employees report this in our commercial HRIS/Payroll system, where it is maintained and where it is reviewed and approved by the employee’s manager. The employees report the time they worked and which project(s) they worked on, their managers review and approve the time and the distribution, and the data is tracked and maintained in our HRIS/Payroll system (ExponentHR).
• Also under Condition, the finding states, “The specific amount of employee salaries and wages that are allocated to specific federal programs for reimbursement, and which are less than the amounts reflected in time and effort records, are determined by members of the finance staff.” It is correct that we would have to invoice sponsors for less than the total cost of an employee’s allocated time and effort if a sponsor’s budget is not sufficient to cover that full amount. This is the correct procedure to follow. Employees correctly continue documenting their hours worked on a specific project even if the budget is expended and the accounting staff can no longer bill the sponsor. If a particular grant does not have sufficient sponsor funds, then the Grants Accounting staff reduce the bill accordingly.
• Also under Condition, the finding states, “The rationale for the amount actually allocated for reimbursement, if less than the amount reflected in time and effort records, is not documented”. This is incorrect. Our monthly invoices to each sponsor accumulate, with each invoice clearly showing not only that month’s expense but also the year-to-date expense and remaining balance, which forces the sponsor invoice to stop at an amount less than the total cost of employees’ time and effort when the budget is exhausted.
• Also under Condition, the finding states, “Review and approval of the allocation of employee compensation to specific federal programs reimbursement requests is not maintained.” Each employee records their hours worked, and the project(s) on which they worked those hours, in our HRIS/Payroll system. The employee’s manager reviews and approves both the hours worked and the projects on which the hours were worked. This review and approval is maintained in our HRIS/Payroll system. Financial staff calculate the amount to allocate to specific federal programs based on these HRIS/Payroll system records (or other records such as clinical units produced, based on the terms of each grant). Separate accounting staff review the sponsor invoice and post the Receivable once they deem the invoice correct.
• Under Cause, the finding states, “…..the Organization has not implemented a structured process for documenting the extent to which allowable [emphasis added] compensation costs will be allocated for reimbursement to specific federal programs in instances where the allowable compensation cost exceeds the amount allocated for reimbursement.” This means that we do not have a process for documenting how much of a payroll expense already deemed allowable on a particular grant will actually be invoiced there. We disagree and believe that the presence and documentation of a limited sponsor budget, along with cumulative tracking and documentation of compensation expenses against that budget, proves and documents why sometimes full compensation costs are not charged to a grant.
• Under Possible Effect, the finding addresses possible effects of “the absence of documented allocation methodologies.” We don’t agree that our process could lead to improper allocation between federal programs (as the finding states) nor to misstating federal expenditures (as the finding states). When a sponsor’s budget is insufficient to cover its appropriately allocated compensation costs, those costs are paid from unrestricted, non-federal funds. As also noted in the finding, no questioned costs were identified.