2022-058 Department of Human Services Perform timely reconciliations of refinanced OR-Kids transactions Federal Awarding Agency: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistance Listing Number and Name: 93.667 Social Services Block Grant Federal Award Numbers and Years: 2101ORSOSR, 2021; 22...
2022-058 Department of Human Services Perform timely reconciliations of refinanced OR-Kids transactions Federal Awarding Agency: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistance Listing Number and Name: 93.667 Social Services Block Grant Federal Award Numbers and Years: 2101ORSOSR, 2021; 2201ORSOSR, 2022 Compliance Requirement: Period of Performance Type of Finding: Significant Deficiency; Noncompliance Prior Year Finding: N/A Questioned Costs: $1,308,457 (likely) Criteria: 42 USC 1397a(c); 45 CFR 75.386a(2); 45 CFR 96.30b(2) According to federal requirements, to be eligible for federal funding, expenditures must be expended in the fiscal year allotted or in the succeeding fiscal year (period of performance). Additionally, federal post-closeout requirements stipulate the return of any funds due because of later refunds, corrections, or other transactions. As part of the grant closeout process, block grants also require the grantees to report the total funds expended and the date of the last expenditure. Grant closeout is the process by which the federal awarding agency determines that all applicable administrative actions and all required work have been completed. Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) has expenditures originating from the child welfare system, OR-Kids. OR-Kids is used to manage placements, eligibility, payments, and other case information. When various corrections are initiated, OR-Kids can re-process transactions as far back as January 1, 2008. For some placement corrections, OR-Kids processed the recovery of the funds in a state grant (Miscellaneous Other Fund grant), instead of the federal grant. To date, the department has not completed permanent fixes to the OR-Kids system to prevent these re-processing errors from occurring. During fiscal year 2022, the department was reconciling the Miscellaneous Other Fund grant and identified refunds related to SSBG. The refinanced expenditures reduced the amount of SSBG expenditures originally reported in closed grant awards. Instead of submitting a refund, the department identified expenditures recorded in subsequent grants that could have been used to backfill the reduction of expenditures. Allowable expenditures, that met the period of performance, were subsequently moved. To illustrate, a total of $1.3 million of expenditures were moved in the accounting system from grant award 21 (federal fiscal year 2021) to grant award 20. The department then moved expenditures totaling $1.2 million from grant award 20 to grant award 19. This process continued for all grant awards going back to grant award 11 (federal fiscal year 2011). The table below illustrates the movement of expenditures between grant awards. ?See Corrective Action Plan for Table? Although the department only moved expenditures that qualified for each respective period of performance, we question whether the federal awarding agency would allow the department to backfill the $1.3 million of expenditures in question after grant closeout had been completed. We recommend department management conduct more timely reconciliations of OR-Kids refinancing adjustments to ensure adjustments are made during the related periods of performance. We further recommend management work with its federal awarding agency to determine if it is appropriate to backfill program expenditures between grants to account for the reduction in expenditures created by the reconciliation process. If not appropriate, the questioned costs should be repaid to the federal awarding agency. MANAGEMENT RESPONSE: The agency disagrees with this finding. SFMA grant phase is an internal tracking mechanism only and is not mandated by ACF. None of the expenditures observed were moved into or out of the period of performance for which they originally qualified for. SSBG awards have a two-year period of performance for claiming. As a result, there is an overlap between internal phases where expenditures qualify for two at any given time. Assignment of phase in SFMA is based on internal balancing needs to ensure claiming is not over or under the award for that period. Prior period adjustments occur periodically and are debited or credited to the phase they were originally recorded under. Should those adjustments cause a phase to become under or over reported, the assigned phase in SFMA is adjusted to maintain consistency between SFMA expenditures and the SF-425 report provided to ACF. If a prior period increasing expenditure is outside the period of performance, it is moved to non-reportable and state only funding. Anticipated Completion Date: N/A Contact: Fariborz Pakseresht, Oregon Department of Human Services Director