Corrective Action Plans

Condition: Of the 40 samples included in our sample selected for testing in the Research and Development Cluster (R&D), the University included two invoices for a total of $2,618 that were incurred prior to the beginning of the grant period. Planned Corrective Action: The university has implemented a new grant financial and billing software that provides improved controls over operational transactions, including an Award Calendar control that recognizes the award end date in the invoice posting process. The costs described in this finding, which occurred before the new system was implemented have been removed from the existing grant and replaced by other allowable costs that were incurred within the proper award period. Contact person responsible for corrective action: Associate Controller, Brenda Lindberg Anticipated Completion Date: The new grants module, which includes grant billing and award calendar schedule became operational at July 1, 2024.

Corrective Action Plan Finding 2024-001 Finding Summary: The Center did not exclude charges for patient care when calculating modified total direct costs (MTDC) in accordance with Uniform Guidance and TxGMS and thus the indirect rate used in calculating the indirect amount charged to the grant was not consistently accurate. Corrective Action Plan: The Center has historically calculated the indirect amount using the same methodology over time. Given the small volume of patient receipts, the impact on the total indirect amount is minor. We believe that had we modified our calculations, we would have had enough modified total direct costs to cover the change in the calculation. The Center will modify all future calculations to ensure alignment. We will also review the fiscal year covered under this audit to understand what the impact of the change would have been on the split between cost types. Note that since we are midway through our next fiscal year, and we consider the differences minor, we have determined that we will correct for any future reimbursement requests, but will not modify prior reimbursement requests. Similarly, we will conduct a review of that fiscal year to determine the impact of the change and verify it is not significant. Responsible Individuals: Rusty Taylor, CFO Joe Carrington, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis Anticipated Completion Date: August 2025

Reference Number: 2024-013 Prior Year Finding: No Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Transportation State Agency: Agency of Transportation Federal Program: Federal Transit Cluster Assistance Listing Number: 20.500, 20.507, 20.526 Award Number and Year: VT-04-0021-01 (3/14/2013 – 6/30/2016) Compliance Requirement: Cash Management, Period of Performance Type of Finding: Significant Deficiency in Internal Control Over Compliance, Other Matters Recommendation: We recommend that VTrans review and enhance grant closeout procedures and internal controls to ensure that grants are closed out timely. We further recommend that VTrans review and enhance procedures and internal controls over cash management to ensure that cash draws are performed only against grants for which the period of performance has not expired. Views of responsible officials: Management agrees with the finding. Corrective Action Plan: The following factors contributed to the noncompliance: VTrans experienced staff turnover, at which point close out processes were missed in 2016. This resulted in a grant remaining with an open status in the TrAMS system well beyond the period of performance. During the 2024 review by program staff, a drawdown was inadvertently processed for this grant with the expired period of performance. At the time, VTrans lacked a formal, documented grant closeout process for FTA grants in the TrAMS system. Additionally, there was a breakdown in communication between the Accounts Receivable (AR) team and the Public Transit Program team regarding period of performance eligibility prior to processing the draw. VTrans has taken the following steps to strengthen internal controls and prevent recurrence of this issue: 1. Formalized Closeout Procedures: VTrans has implemented a structured grant closeout process for the AOT Public Transit Program that clearly defines responsibilities, timelines, and verification steps to ensure all federal awards are closed timely and in compliance with FTA requirements. This process assigns specific tasks to designated staff members and ensures that no drawdowns occur after the period of performance has ended. 2. Annual Period of Performance Review: VTrans has established and documented an annual review process for FTA grant periods of performance. This review has been formally integrated into the Agency’s Public Transit cash management procedures, ensuring that grant end dates are proactively monitored, and necessary extensions or closeouts are addressed before expiration. 3. Enhanced Communication and Documentation: VTrans has updated the internal Excel file used to facilitate communication between the Public Transit Program team and the AR team. The file now includes a designated column for period of performance, ensuring that all drawdowns are reviewed for eligibility before processing. This is also addressed in an update to the Agency’s Public Transit cash management procedure memo. VTrans will coordinate with FTA to determine the appropriate resolution for these funds. Any necessary repayment or adjustments will be completed in accordance with FTA guidance. At this time, FTA has not requested the funds be returned. Scheduled Completion Date of Correction Action Plan: All corrective actions will be implemented as of March 1, 2025. Contacts for Corrective Action Plan: Ross MacDonald, Public Transit Director ross.macdonald@vermont.gov

Reference Number: 2024-010 Prior Year Finding: 2023-008; 2022-017 Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Labor State Agency: Vermont Department of Labor Federal Program: Unemployment Insurance Assistance Listing Number: 17.225 Award Number and Period: Admin 24A55UI000063 (10/1/2023-12/31/2026), DUA 23A60UD000013 (7/14/2023 - 7/14/2026) Compliance Requirement: Period of Performance Type of Finding: Significant Deficiency in Internal Control over Compliance, Other Matters Recommendation: We recommend the Department review and enhance its procedures and controls to ensure that prior to charging costs to the program, they are incurred within an award’s allowable period of performance. Views of responsible officials: Management agrees with the finding. Corrective Action Plan: The Department will review its procedures and internal controls and update as necessary to ensure that expenditures are incurred within the allowable period of performance for respective awards. It should be noted that during the period of performance for which this audit was conducted there were a large number of personnel changes and shifts. The position that was responsible for the majority of these duties retired in January 2024. We proactively hired for her replacement a year before she retired. Over the course of the year our replacement took over more and more duties. In the process of this replacement, we have completed a tremendous amount of evaluation of our assigned duties, processes, workflow, training, and documentation. Not only in this role, but we are also undergoing a division and business unit wide analysis of our internal controls and workflow. It should also be noted that the UI admin funds are considered ‘formula funds’ from the US DOL. We are expected to run this program year-round with no gaps in service or performance. The funding that we receive from US DOL is based on an antiquated formula that breaks down the amount that is budgeted by Congress between 52 state and territories. We generally do not receive enough funding for the entire year. Also, with the recent trend of Congress to utilize the tool of the Continuing Resolution our funding is often ambiguous until most of the program year is over. We have at times seen our funding cut once a budget had been passed by Congress even though there was only about 3 months left in the program year. We are still expected to run this program and ‘find other sources of funding’. This does make the adherence to the period of performance challenging. However, as we evaluate our internal controls and procedures over the coming months, we will make note of every opportunity to strengthen this function to ensure that all charges applied to program funds are relevant, within the period of performance of the award, and are correctly reviewed and signed. Scheduled Completion Date of Corrective Action Plan: April 1, 2025 Contacts for Corrective Action Plan: Chad Wawrzyniak, Financial Director II chad.wawrzyniak@vermont.gov

Reference Number: 2024-007 Prior Year Finding: No Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Defense State Agency: Vermont State Military Department Federal Program: National Guard Military Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Projects Assistance Listing Number: 12.401 Award Number and Period: W912LN2421001 (10/1/2023 – 9/20/2024) Compliance Requirement: Period of Performance Type of Finding: Significant Deficiency in Internal Control over Compliance, Other Matters Recommendation: The Department should review and enhance its procedures and internal controls to ensure that it charges expenditures to the program that are incurred within an award’s allowable period of performance. Views of responsible officials: Management agrees with the finding. Corrective Action Plan: The Department agrees with this finding and will implement the following: • Update Accounts Payable Standard Operating Procedures to include instructions for determining the appropriate Federal Fiscal year for coding and paying vendor invoices. • Distribute updated procedures and train staff to ensure understanding of Period of Performance reporting requirements. • Update Vision query to include the Invoice Date field. Current reports used for preparing the SF-270 only include the Vision transaction date, therefore the preparer and reviewer are not able to determine the performance dates of individual transactions based on this report alone and rely on proper coding of the Class field during voucher entry. Adding the Invoice Date to the report will improve the department’s ability to QC the SF-270 for period of performance discrepancies prior to submission for reimbursement. • The Financial Director will perform quarterly audits of this Vision report to identify any improper reporting. Any errors identified will be corrected with a journal voucher and subsequently corrected on the next SF-270. Scheduled Completion Date of Corrective Action Plan: April 15, 2025 Contacts for Corrective Action Plan: Kim Fedele, Financial Director kimberly.fedele@vermont.gov

The process to determine students who withdraw during the semester has been updated to include running a withdrawal list through RGER weekly. The list will be given to the Financial Aid Counselors to work on Mondays. Part of the review will be to verify the start and end dates of the term used during the process. The Director or Assistant Director will review the lists and R2T4 forms (ROFW) to verify accuracy and timely processing.

Corrective action plan: Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) Actions Taken: HHSC Fund Management worked with Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Operations Support to develop a query to identify journal transactions that post in the CAPPS Financials General Ledger module prior to the start date of the project. This query has been run monthly since May 2024, and it was fully implemented as of August 31, 2024. Planned: Additional training on the review process for Accounting and Budget staff, and revisions to the process to emphasize meeting deadlines while new federal grants and old federal grant close out transactions occur. An expenditure transfer voucher (ETV) to correct reconciliation issue will be completed by CFO Budget staff. Block Grants for Community Mental Health Services (MHBG) Actions Taken: HHSC Fund Management will run the monthly query and take corrective action on any resulting journals prior to the close of the fiscal year. In addition, HHSC Fund Management/Cash Management does not draw federal funds past the liquidation date. These dates are denoted in their draw ledgers. Cash Management also sends a semi_x0002_monthly email during the fiscal year and a weekly email from mid-June through the end of July to HHSC Budget identifying transactions by fund source that should be cleared from the draw down report prior to the close of the fiscal year. HHSC Cash Management will continue to send the draw down clean up report and start the weekly emails the first week of June. HHSC Budget will complete any ETVs resulting from the draw down clean up report to HHSC Fund Management General Ledger for processing by July 15 to ensure the draw down accurately reflects federal expenditures for the SEFA population. Planned: Budget Management will revise the coordination process with Behavioral Health Services program financial staff administering MHBG to prioritize addressing encumbered balances on expiring block grant years at the beginning of the liquidation period and set deadlines for Program input on required financial adjustments to ensure sufficient time for processing. ETV to correct reconciliation issue will be completed. Implementation dates: February 28, 2025 Responsible persons: SSBG: Heather Nevill, Fund Management Director, Fund Accounting Raymond Jasik, Budget Director, CFO Budget Heather Anderson, Budget Manager, CFO Budget MHBG: Marcie Ochoa-Gamez, Budget Manager, Budget Management

Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Action: Moving forward the Department will require recipients to provide a list of invoices with the invoice date, period of performance, invoice amount and amount requested/disbursed from ARPA and/or other funding sources to be included with each disbursement request. Staff training will be modified to ensure staff understand allowable expenditures and period of performance restrictions. Anticipated Completion Date: June 30, 2025 Contact Person: Debby Dickson Water Development Division Manager Arkansas Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Division 1 Natural Resources Drive Little Rock, AR 72205 (501) 225-1598 Debra.Dickson@agriculture.arkansas.gov

Program: AL 93.575 – COVID-19 Child Care and Development Block Grant – Allowability & Period of Performance Corrective Action Plan: The Agency is in the process of developing a subrecipient monitoring tool to ensure effective controls and processes for uniform oversight of subawards across the program. Additionally, the Agency had not conducted an internal audit of programs supported by American Rescue Plan Act (APRA) funds at the time of this audit. The program is in the process of preparing and completing the audit to assess and strengthen compliance measures and ensure these funds are utilized appropriately. Future audits and reviews will be conducted periodically to ensure ongoing oversight and adherence to regulations. Contact: Nicole Vint Anticipated Completion Date: 6/30/2025

Program: AL 93.575 – COVID-19 Child Care and Development Block Grant – Period of Performance Corrective Action Plan: The Agency will work with Federal Partners to determine allowability of these claims. Contact: Heather Arnold Anticipated Completion Date: 6/30/2025

Program: AL 84.126 – Rehabilitation Services Vocational Rehabilitation Grants to States – Period of Performance Corrective Action Plan: A validation will be added into the case management system (QE2) that prevents an obligation from being created in a federal fiscal year with a service start date in a previous federal fiscal year. Contact: Cathy Callaway Anticipated Completion Date: April 1, 2025

Management’s Response and Corrective Action Plan: Alpine Achievers Initiative acknowledges the finding and recommendation. Late submissions occurred due to delays on responses from the grantor. Management will be more proactive in documenting communication regarding Period Expense Reports (PERs) to ensure that, if they are submitted late, there is clear evidence of why and what date they were initially submitted. Management is now aware that the PER system only reflects the final submission date once approved, not the initial submission date. To address this, Alpine Achievers Initiative (AAI) will implement a process to document the initial submission date along with any backup documentation of delays, including communications with Serve Colorado or other relevant parties. Additionally, Serve Colorado has clarified that while timely submission of PERs is required, grantees who communicate a need for additional time by the 15th of the month are considered compliant. Serve Colorado also noted that, based on AAI’s history and previous communications, they would not consider this a finding or an indicator of poor performance. Moving forward, AAI will ensure that any anticipated delays are formally communicated to Serve Colorado before the due date and that records of these communications are retained for audit purposes. Contact and Completion Date: Megan Strauss (megan@alpineachievers.org) is the primary contact, and the Executive Director at Alpine Achievers Initiative The correction action is expected to be resolved before the end of the next fiscal year-end of July 31, 2025.

Condition: Costs were charged to the grants for payroll and related benefits earned prior to the start of the grant period. Corrective Action Planned: We had budgeted the full cost of one teacher and four teaching assistances in the IDEA 240 grant for 2024. The approval process for the grant took longer than expected, our intent was always to comply, but we do realize we should have waited for the approval to be in place prior to charging the costs of these employees to the grant. In the future we will wait for the approval process to be complete and will then charge the employees there. Anticipated Completion Date: July 1, 2025 Contact: Martin Anguelov, Chief Financial Officer for Nantucket Public Schools and Deb Gately, Director of Special Education for Nantucket Public Schools

Condition: Costs were liquidated after 120 calendar days after the end of the grant period. Corrective Action Planned: The Sandwich Public Schools will implement the following procedures to ensure that the 120 liquidation finding doesn’t happen again. 1. We will make sure that all costs are liquidated within the 120 day window after the end of the grant period. 2. If we see we are approaching the 120 day limit on a certain expense, we will reach out to DESE to ask for an extension to the 120 day liquidation requirement. 3. We will add these procedures to our Federal Grant Manual so that all are aware of these requirements. Anticipated Completion Date: June 30, 2025 Contact: Michelle Austin, Director of Finance and Business Operations

Condition: There was no evidence of a system of internal control over the cash management requirements, including a written policy related to reimbursement of funds on a per-refugee basis. In addition, it was noted that reimbursement was requested prior to incurring expenses on a per-refugee basis. There were also refugee costs coded incorrectly within the general ledger. Planned Corrective Action: Financial policies will be updated to include cash management requirements to ensure expenditures are incurred, including any required per client expenditures, prior to reimbursement requests. Subsequent to year end a new process was put in place to compare the individual refugee ledgers to the reimbursement request to ensure no expenditures were requested in advance and that individual refugee costs were coded to the correct general ledger account. Contact person responsible for corrective action: Linda P. Foster, CEO Anticipated Completion Date: Refugee ledger reconciliation process completed 2/1/2025 Policy approval and implementation to be completed by 5/1/2025

FINDING 2024-003 Finding Subject: Special Education Cluster (IDEA) - Activities Allowed or Unallowed, Allowable Costs/Cost Principles, Period of Performance, Material Weakness Summary of Finding: There is no administrate review of reimbursable expenses submitted to MAESSU by the district payroll clerks. Lack of an internal control. Contact Person Responsible for Corrective Action: Jami Parks, Business Manager Contact Phone Number and Email Address: 812-794-9630, jami.parks@scsd1.com Views of Responsible Officials: We concur with the finding. Description of Corrective Action Plan: The Payroll Clerk will submit the reimbursement requests to the corporation Business Manager for review before the reimbursement is submitted to MAESSU for payment. Anticipated Completion Date: The anticipated completion date will be with the April reimbursement submission.

Federal Agency Name: Department of Homeland Security Pass-Through Entity: State of Illinois Office of Emergency Management Federal Financial Assistance Listing #97.036 Program Name: Disaster Grants – Public Assistance Finding Summary: The Cooperative did not retain documentation to support the review and approval over material costs claimed for reimbursement under the program. Responsible Individuals: Scott Seipel (Warehouseman), Ryan Ruppel (Superintendent) Corrective Action Plan: A line or lines will be added to the material charge out sheet to formalize the review and approval. The Superintendent of Operations will begin reviewing and approving all material charge out sheets and documenting that review to supplement the review currently being done by the Warehouseman when entering the material charge out sheets prepared by other employees or contractors. Anticipated Completion Date: We believe this corrective action plan can be reasonably incorporated into our internal controls by June 2025 and will make necessary arrangements to ensure that it does get incorporated.

Department of Health and Human Services Response/Corrective Action Plan The Department of Health and Human Services agrees with the recommendation. The department will monitor expenses within the budget and grant period based on guidance from the federal agency to ensure that the date of expenditures are not claimed before grant funds are received. Contact Person: Eric Haas, Assistant CFO Anticipated Completion Date: December 2024

Department of Health and Human Services Response/Corrective Action Plan The Department of Health and Human Services agrees with the recommendation. To address this, the department will run quarterly reports from AWARE to identify any payments charged to the incorrect period of performance. Grant guidance has been updated to ensure items with unique service dates are properly reviewed. Additionally, during the three-month liquidation period, a monthly review of all expenditures will be conducted to verify they are applied to the correct period of performance. These actions will strengthen oversight and ensure compliance with grant requirements. Contact Person: Eric Haas, Assistant CFO Anticipated Completion Date: December 2024

Department of Public Instruction Response/Corrective Action Plan: We agree with the finding. We have updated our grant award templates to include all required information. Contact Person: Jamie Mertz, CFO Anticipated Completion Date: This has already been implemented effective 2/1/2025.

State Treasurer’s Office Response/Corrective Action Plan: The Office of State Treasurer does agree with finding that our grant award template did not make subrecipients aware of all required grant award information for the Mineral Leasing Act as required. The Office of State Treasurer will review and update its grant award templates to ensure that subrecipients are made aware of all required grant award information. Contact Person: Nicole Krivoruchka, Director of Finance Anticipated Completion Date: December 31, 2025

A.    DESE has informed us that if this situation ever comes up in the future, asking for a federal extension if buses were not going to be delivered in a timely manner, in this case by January 10, 2025. The manufacturer assured us that the buses would be delivered by November 4, 2024 so we didn’t asked for the extension.

B.     In the future, we will wait until buses are on site to write checks.

C.     We do not anticipate any ESSER ARP money to be issued in the near future.

Management’s Response: The Human Resources (HR) team of the Chief Human Resources Officer and the HR Generalists are responsible for completing background checks for existing new employees. The HR team will ensure proper and required background checks are completed, reviewed and approved for all new and existing employees. Proper documentation and results of all background checks will be reviewed and filed accordingly. Estimated Completion Date: September 30, 2025 Responsible Position: Brent Wauneka, Chief Financial Officer; Ronnye Etsitty, Chief Human Resources Officer; and Chasity Jones and Vivian Upshaw, Human Resources Generalists