View of Responsible Officials The Department will review its Sub-recipient Monitoring Policy and assess compliance across the Department. It is important to note that between April 2020 and June 2022 the Department was involved in the State?s strategic response to the COVID-19 pandemic. During th...
View of Responsible Officials The Department will review its Sub-recipient Monitoring Policy and assess compliance across the Department. It is important to note that between April 2020 and June 2022 the Department was involved in the State?s strategic response to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, New Hampshire was under a state of emergency (Executive Order 2020-04), processes were rapidly converted to fully digital overnight, the State?s standard approval processes were suspended and non-standard templates were utilized to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department worked with other State Departments and the National Guard to create a record number of amendments, contracts, and other agreements (approximately 200% more than standard). The Department is in the process of instituting a new contract life cycle management solution that will utilize conditional logic to include the required notifications for agreements involving federal funds in order to ensure compliance. Implementation is anticipated to be complete in July 2023. As the COVID-19 pandemic strategic response has wound down, the Department has not suspended its regular standard approval or subrecipient risk assessment and monitoring processes and has not used non-standard templates to award federal funding. The Financial Compliance Unit (FCU) will continue to work with the Business System Analyst of the Cost Allocation Unit in determining the amount of Federal payments made to the vendors. The FCU receives a vendor payment list on a quarterly basis that includes the total amount of Federal funds that were paid to all contracted agencies. We will continue to closely monitor the FAC to obtain all copies of the Single Audits pertaining to the DHHS agencies. In addition, we will devise a spreadsheet that will list all contracts that have been awarded Federal funds and cross check these agencies to vendor payment list. The DHHS updated the policy on risk assessment on November 16, 2020 to ensure that all contracts have a risk assessment performed regardless of funding source. We also have added verbiage in the contracts effective for contracts that begin after November 2021. It states any Contractor that receives an amount equal to or greater than $250,000 from the Department during a single fiscal year, regardless of the funding source, may be required, at a minimum, to submit annual financial audits performed by an independent CPA if the Department?s risk assessment determination indicates the Contractor is high-risk. Finally, effective for any new procurement subsequent to March 2022, all back-up documentation must accompany the invoices and be submitted on a monthly basis. Anticipated Completion Date: July 2023 Contact Person: Melissa Kelleher, Grants Administrator, Ann Driscoll, Financial Compliance Unit