2023-043 Oregon Business Development Department
Management should implement accounting review of quarterly reports before submitting to DAS
MANAGEMENT RESPONSE:
We agree with this recommendation.
We agree with this finding. Business Oregon has gone through significant personnel change during the ...
2023-043 Oregon Business Development Department
Management should implement accounting review of quarterly reports before submitting to DAS
MANAGEMENT RESPONSE:
We agree with this recommendation.
We agree with this finding. Business Oregon has gone through significant personnel change during the period of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant disbursements, from January 2022 to June 2023. The Chief Financial Officer, Accounting Manager, and Accountants had moved on to other state agencies. The accounting positions were left vacant for months due to challenges in timely filling these positions with the right skill sets. Although there were only a few accounting staff left when majority of the grant disbursements were made, the remaining accounting processed the disbursements with very tight deadlines. The accounting staff processed grant disbursements through appropriate internal control procedures, reviewed supporting documents for appropriate signature approval on the requests, and made accounting entries for these grant activity transactions.
Below is a list of staff hire dates to illustrate the turnover we faced during this time period:
• Federal Grant Accountant – November 2023
• Chief Financial Officer – October 2023
• Deputy CFO/Accounting Manager – May 2023
• Program Accountant 2 – April 2023
• Accounting Technician – April 2023
• Debt Accountant 3 – March 2023
• Program Accountant 3 – January 2023
• Program Accountant 3 – August 2022
Due to the accounting team not having enough personnel at the time to prepare reports for the DAS ARPA Grant Program Coordinator, Business Oregon program staff (not accounting staff) took the initiative to complete the reports and submitted the periodic/quarterly reports to DAS. As the Business Oregon program staff did not have access to the SFMA (state accounting system), the program staff used data from another system (Salesforce, not an accounting system) to fill the needed information for the reports. The initial reports submitted to DAS were not reviewed by accounting staff. The program staff continued to complete the reports for DAS until first quarter of 2023, until accountant positions were filled in 2023.
While preparing for the FY 2023 Year-End Closing process (June 2023 to July 2023), the newly hired accountants and Deputy CFO/Accounting Manager reviewed as many FY23 financial transactions as they could and made necessary adjustments and accounting entry corrections. Reporting discrepancies were identified between department accounting records and the reports submitted by program staff to DAS/US Dept of Treasury. Business Oregon accountants worked with DAS on revising the SEFA reports and identified ARPA grant-related items that needs to be corrected. The research continued even after the fiscal year 2023 reporting has closed. A reconciliation of records between department accounting and the reports submitted to the DAS Grant program coordinator was completed in January 2024, and the Business Oregon accounting team submitted a revised FY 2023 SEFA report corrections to the DAS SARS team.
Going forward, management will ensure that the completion of quarterly financial reports for grant reporting is performed and submitted by the agency’s accounting team and not program staff to ensure data comes from the accounting system with the review by an accountant or accounting manager.
Anticipated Completion Date: June 30, 2024
Contact person: Imee Anderson, Chief Financial Officer; Karl Mielke, Deputy Chief Financial Officer