Finding 1092798 (2024-001)

Finding - Contrary to Federal regulations, the District under allocated Title I Program funds totaling $274,075 to two schools. Criteria - Title 34, Section 200.78, Code of Federal Regulations, requires the District to allocate Title I schoolwide program funds to schools identified as eligible and selected to participate, in rank order, on the basis of the total number of children from low-income families in each school. The District is not required to allocate the same per-pupil amount (PPA) to each participating school provided that it allocates higher PPAs to schools with higher concentrations of poverty than to schools with lower concentrations of poverty. Condition - The District annually applies for Title I Program funding and the application includes a budget and an eligibility survey to document the amounts budgeted per participating school. During the 2023-24 fiscal year, the District expended $866,916 from the Title I Program, including $775,528 expended for the District’s three schools. As part of our audit, we requested for examination District records supporting the budget allocation amounts to the three schools and final budget amounts evidencing the allocations were provided. However, District records indicated that the ranking of all three District Title I schools did not agree with the ranking based on the percent of students from low-income families. Specifically, two schools had poverty concentrations of 71.01 and 60.55 percent but were allocated and received $177,894 and $69,181 less per pupil funding, respectively, than the school with a lower poverty concentration of 51.63 percent. Cause - Due to staff turnover, the District had not established effective procedures for developing and monitoring Title I budgets at participating schools. Effect - The District did not comply with Federal regulations by appropriately allocating Title I Program resources to participating schools in rank order, on the basis of the total number of children from low-income families in each school. As a result, two District schools were under allocated $247,075 and educational services were not funded at required levels. Recommendation - The District should establish procedures for ensuring and documenting that Title I Program resources are properly allocated to schools. In addition, the District should provide documentation to the FDOE supporting the allowability of the questioned costs totaling $247,075 or allocate that amount to the applicable underfunded Title I schools. District Response - The District has established procedures for ensuring and documenting that Title I Program resources are properly allocated to schools based on FDOE guidelines for allocating funds to schools based on the percentage of students from low-income families. The District will monitor expenditures throughout the year to ensure funds are being spent accordingly.