Finding 2023-002 Significant Deficiency: Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards (SEFA) – Control Finding; Personnel Responsible for Corrective Action: Pete Vujcich, Public Works Division Manager; Anticipated Completion Date: June 30, 2024; Corrective Action Plan: In 2021, El Paso County recogniz...
Finding 2023-002 Significant Deficiency: Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards (SEFA) – Control Finding; Personnel Responsible for Corrective Action: Pete Vujcich, Public Works Division Manager; Anticipated Completion Date: June 30, 2024; Corrective Action Plan: In 2021, El Paso County recognized and appropriated $4 million from a CDOT grant (Fed) and $831,501 of local match that was
provided by PPRTA (reimbursement) for construction on the South Academy widening project. The overall South Academy
project is funded by PPRTA but managed by El Paso County. In May of 2023, PPRTA issued a Purchase Order for $59,965,997.99
to SEMA Construction and the construction contract with SEMA was executed. In December of 2023, SEMA performed work on
the project resulting in billings of $4,456,362.07. A payment application was sent to the construction management firm (Wilson
& Company) on January 17, 2024 from SEMA. This payment request was rejected due to insufficient certified payrolls. On
February 27, 2024, Public Works received an invoice package with all required documentation. During February 2024, Public
Works realized that PPRTA would not be able to submit for reimbursement because the IGA was directed to the County and not
PPRTA. At that point, the project manager requested a 2024 Purchase Order to pay this invoice. On March 6, 2024, Public
Works submitted the 2024 invoice along with a 2024 Purchase Order to Accounts Payable requesting payment was made to SEMA. At that point, the payment was issued and booked to 2024 without recognition of the actual work performance period. Since the invoice was booked in 2024, the expenditure was also not reflected on the 2023 SEFA. As soon as this expenditure was brought to our attention, we immediately requested Accounting record the $4.5 million on the 2023 SEFA. Standard operating procedures include a request of all project managers to identify any anticipated invoices that will be received in the following year to identify any potential reclassification situations. In this particular case, the project manager did identify this project, and anticipated payment request. At the time, this project was a PPRTA run project, and would not have had an impact on the county’s financial reports. Previously, Public Works had a very manual SEFA reporting process in place. Public Works just went live with a new Capital project tracking platform called eBuilder. eBuilder has a required field on the pay app approval screen that requires employees to enter the billing period start and end dates. When Managers go into eBuilder to approve payments, they are required to ensure the billing periods match the payment dates. In addition, as a double check, Public Works is working on customizing eBuilder to flag approvers if the invoice date has a different year listed than the billing period. Public Work has done training with employees to ensure employees understand the additional components of a progress billing pay application, to include timing issues with the review and approval process utilized. We have also reinforced the importance to communicate the correct year expenses were incurred when submitting to Accounts Payable and Accounting. eBuilder will allow Public Works to run reports showing expenses for the correct year. These reports will then be submitted to Accounting to assist with the SEFA preparation. Public Works is confident that all expenditures will be recorded correctly on the SEFA moving forward.