Finding Text
Department of Education and Passed through State of South Dakota Department of Education
FFAL #84.287C, S287C220042
Twenty-First Century Community Learning Centers
Activities Allowed or Unallowed and Allowable Costs/Cost Principles
Significant Deficiency in Internal Control over Compliance
Criteria: The Club is required to have procedures in place to ensure that federal awards are expended only for allowable costs in accordance with Subpart E – Cost Principles of the Uniform Guidance. Allowable costs are supported by appropriate documentation and correctly charged as to account, amount, and period. 2 CFR 200.430(i) establishes requirements for documentation of personnel expenses. 2 CFR 200.303(a) establishes that the auditee must establish and maintain effective internal control over the federal award that provides assurance that the entity is managing the federal award in compliance with federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the federal award.
Condition: Our testing over expenditures noted the following items:
- Two instances where timesheets or bi-weekly activity reports were unable to be provided.
- Three instances where the employee’s paid time off and holiday pay was not allocated nor submitted for reimbursement under the federal program, which was inconsistent with other pay periods.
- One instance where support did not agree to the amount and time allocated.
Cause: Tracking of grant-related payroll is a manual process which increases the likelihood of error.
Effect: The Club’s controls did not detect or correct the errors identified, which results in a reasonable possibility that the Club could submit disallowed costs under the federal awards.
Questioned Costs: No questioned costs over $25,000.
Context/Sampling: A nonstatistical sample of 60 transactions out of approximately 830 total transactions were selected testing, of which 51 of those transactions were payroll transactions and accounted for $45,055 out of $272,463 of total payroll transactions.
Repeat Finding from Prior Year: No
Recommendation: We recommend management continue to review the process over tracking payroll related to federal programs and consider incorporating a secondary review of any manual spreadsheets or consider if the payroll can be allocated directly within the payroll system.
Views of Responsible Officials: Management is in agreement.