Finding Text
1. FINDING NUMBER:14 2024 - 007 2. THIS FINDING IS: X New Repeat from Prior year?
Year originally reported?
3. Federal Program Name and Year: Education Stabilization Fund - PY 2023
4. Project No.: 23-4998-E3 5. AL No.: 84.425
6. Passed Through: Illinois State Board of Education
7. Federal Agency: Department of Education
8. Criteria or specific requirement (including statutory, regulatory, or other citation)
According to 2 CFR §200.303 (Internal Controls), non-Federal entities must establish and maintain effective internal control over the Federal award that provides reasonable assurance that the entity is managing the Federal award in compliance with Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Federal award.
9. Condition
BT noted, during the review of ESSER expenditures, that the District paid the vendor for duplicate invoices. The erroneous invoice passed through all necessary controls, including purchase order/invoice review and approval to payment approval, resulting in the invoice being paid twice to the vendor for a single service. BT noted the total suspected duplicated invoices to be $2,955.67.
10. Questioned Costs
No reportable questioned costs noted
11. Context
During our audit of allowable activities, two separate instances of duplicated invoices were identified from a stratified sample size of forty. The sample was deemed not statistically valid.
12. Effect
The client incurred unnecessary expenses by paying vendors twice for the same service, which could result in financial losses and potential non-compliance with Federal regulations.
13. Cause
The District's internal controls failed to identify and prevent the payment of duplicate invoices.
14. Recommendation
We recommend that the client implement stronger internal controls over the disbursement process. This includes establishing a review and approval process for all invoices before payment, implementing software controls to detect duplicate invoices, and providing training to staff on proper invoice processing procedures to minimize typographical errors.
15. Management's response
Moving forward, our accounts payable coordinator will not adjust invoice numbers in IVEE and instead check the general ledger to ensure payment for that invoice has not already been made. Business Manager will perform a review of the list of bills to ensure there are no duplicate payments.