Finding Text
Material Weakness
Material Noncompliance
Program: Assistance Listing 84.010A - Title I Grants To Local Educational Agencies (Title I, Part A of the ESEA)
Assistance Listing: 84.027/84.173 – Special Education Cluster (IDEA)
Assistance Listing: 84.425D – Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund
Assistance Listing 84.425U – American Rescue Plan – Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER)
Repeat Finding: No
Criteria: 2 CFR 200.302 requires that a non-federal entity’s financial management system must be sufficient to permit the preparation of reports required by general and program-specific terms and conditions. This section further requires the tracing of funds to a level of expenditures adequate to establish that such funds have been used according to the federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the federal award, including a comparison of expenditures with budget amounts for each federal award. 2 CFR 200.303 requires that a non-federal entity must establish and maintain effective internal control over a federal award that provides reasonable assurance that the non-federal entity is managing the federal award in compliance with federal statues, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the federal award.
Condition: As part of our audit procedures over expenditures, we observed approximately ten instances where the required supporting documentation to support an expenditure was missing or unavailable. Furthermore, we observed one instance where an expenditure was incorrectly charged to a function and object code, was not budgeted for in related grant budget.
Context/
Perspective: This finding is based on our statistically valid random sample of forty cash disbursements totaling $890,529 charged to major programs for single audit purposes and the conditions cited appear to be a systematic issue.
Questioned Costs:
Projected Questioned Costs:
$1,323,439.41 - 84.425D/U – Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief
$441,065.61 - 84.027/84.173 – Special Education Cluster (IDEA)
$1,526.67 - 84.010A - Title I Grants To Local Educational Agencies (Title I, Part of the ESEA)
Questioned Cost of Sampled Items:
$35,425.09 - 84.425D/U – Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief
$11,325.72 - 84.027/84.173 – Special Education Cluster (IDEA)
$7.33 - 84.010A - Title I Grants To Local Educational Agencies (Title I, Part of the ESEA)
Recommendation: We recommend that the District implement additional internal controls as necessary to ensure that proper records are maintained to document its expenditures charged to federal grant programs. We also recommend that the District implement additional internal controls as necessary to ensure that expenditures are charged to the appropriate budget categories in the Mississippi Comprehensive Automated Performance-based System (MCAPS) of the District which is administered through the Mississippi Department of Education.
Views of
Responsible
Officials: The Auditee’s Corrective Action Plan on pages 99-100 lists the District’s response to the findings.