Finding Text
Assistance Listing Number, Federal Agency, and Program Name - 10.553, 10.555, and 10.559, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Child Nutrition Cluster
Federal Award Identification Number and Year - 241960, 240910, 241970, 240900
Pass-through Entity - Michigan Department of Education
Finding Type - Material weakness
Repeat Finding - No
Criteria - The School District must submit monthly claims for reimbursement for meals served to eligible students within 60 days following the last day of the month covered by the claim 7 CFR sections 210.8, 220.11, 215.10, and 225.15 (c)). Upon preparation of meal reimbursement claims, the School District is required to have controls in place to ensure the accuracy of the request for reimbursement.
Condition - The School District did not have a documented review process in place over the reimbursement requests. Meal counts entered into the Michigan Nutrition Data (MIND) system took place without a secondary review, which could result in incorrect reporting of the number of meals.
Cause and Effect - The preparation of the request without a secondary review could result in incorrect reporting of the number of free and reduced priced meals, which could result in the School District being reimbursed an incorrect amount by the Michigan Department of Education.
Recommendation - The School District should implement a control where the monthly reimbursement request is reviewed and approval is documented to ensure the submission is mechanically accurate and that it agrees with the School District’s summary of daily count spreadsheets.
Views of Responsible Officials and Corrective Action Plan - The School District's business office performed a detailed review of all meal claim submissions for the 2023 2024 fiscal year. Claims were accurately completed as was the amount of reimbursement paid by the Michigan Department of Education. The business office has since implemented a formalized internal control procedure beginning in July 2024, whereby a formal documented review of the meal claim submission is performed.