FINDING 2022-001 Information on the federal program: Subject: Special Education Cluster (IDEA) - Earmarking Federal Agency: Department of Education Federal Program: Special Education Grants to States Assistance Listing Number: 84.027 Federal Award Number: 20611-001-PN01 Pass-Through Entity: ...
FINDING 2022-001 Information on the federal program: Subject: Special Education Cluster (IDEA) - Earmarking Federal Agency: Department of Education Federal Program: Special Education Grants to States Assistance Listing Number: 84.027 Federal Award Number: 20611-001-PN01 Pass-Through Entity: Indiana Department of Education Compliance Requirement: Matching, Level of Effort, Earmarking Audit Findings: Significant Deficiency Condition: The School Corporation is a member of the Adams Wells Special Services Cooperative (Cooperative). During fiscal year 2021-2022, the Cooperative operated the special education programs and spent the federal money on behalf of all its member schools. As the grant agreements were between the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) and each member school, the school corporation was responsible for ensuring and providing oversight of the Cooperative. There was inadequate oversight performed by the School Corporation in order to ensure compliance with the Matching, Level of Effort, Earmarking compliance requirement. The School Corporation did not have internal controls in place to ensure that the Cooperative complied with the earmarking requirements. The Cooperative did not have adequate procedures in place to ensure that the required level of expenditures for non-public school students with disabilities was met for each member school. The Cooperative did not have effective internal controls to ensure non-public school expenditures were appropriately identified and reported. Context: The Non-Public Proportionate Share expenditures for the 20611-001-PN01 grant award could not be verified for the individual member schools. Total non-public expenditures were posted as expended. The member school proportionate share expenditures were then determined by applying a budgeted percentage to the total non-public expenditures. These were the amounts reported to IDOE. As such, we were unable to identify if the minimum amount per member school was expended and properly reported to IDOE as required. The School Corporation?s Non-Public Proportionate Share for the 20611-001-PN01 grant application was $10,523. Views of Responsible Officials: We concur with the finding. Description of Corrective Action Plan: Co-ops cannot combine proportionate share funds. Funds must be spent within each LEA?s geographic boundary. We will not receive a repeat finding for FY21. We will correct for FY22 and forward. Time & Effort Logs are being completed to show how many hours personnel are servicing Non-Pub school students with a service plan. If materials and Equipment are purchased for a specific student?s need, per the service plan, then those expenditures are 100% school specific. Per the DOE, Materials used by our Speech Language Pathologist for Speech Therapy for all six school corporations, those expenditures are split evenly across all school corporations with a non-pub proportionate share allocation. Responsible Party and Timeline for Completion: Adams-Wells Special Services Cooperative is the responsible party for the timeline completion. No later than January 2023, the Cooperative will have corrected proportionate share monitoring workbooks for FY22 and the ARP grants.