Finding Text
Finding 2024-001 – Controls over Grant Reporting and Monitoring (Repeat Finding)
Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Pass-through Entity: Illinois Department on Aging
Federal Program: Aging Cluster (Federal Assistance Listing No.’s 93.044, 93.045, 93.053)
Requirement: Allowable Costs and Reporting
Criteria:
To ensure the correctness and completeness of the various required grant reporting performed by the Agency, it is critical to have a process in place to regularly reconcile underlying financial records with the grant reports and ensure the underlying costs in the financial records can be supported. It is also imperative to have monitoring procedures in place to ensure compliance to all grant requirements.
Condition:
During the course of our audit, we noted that the Agency implemented reconciliations between the general ledger and the grant reports. Management is using several worksheets to determine the grant report amounts, and it is evident that the Agency is allotting adequate time to prepare the grant reporting. However, the reconciliations performed by the Agency displayed discrepancies between the general ledger and the grant reports that were not resolved, specifically amounts passed through to subrecipients. Rather than using the Agency’s general ledger to report expenses on grant reports, the Agency is using the subrecipients’ monthly financial reports submitted to the Agency to report expenses on the grant reports. Additionally, many grant reports display the same information, however, each report contains different amounts. Furthermore, there were multiple grant reports that were not submitted by the required deadline. We also noted that no compliance review is being performed to ensure adherence to all grant requirements.
Cause:
Agency continues to improve in this area from the prior years. A formal reconciliation was implemented; however, discrepancies were noted since reporting is completed based off of the general ledger expenses. There is no consistency in the expenses reported in multiple grant reports. Due to the volume of grant reports required to be submitted, it makes the grant reporting process more difficult to maintain. We also were not able to obtain any monitoring documentation, indicating that a formal process has not been developed to ensure grant compliance.
Effect:
Without timely reconciliations and monitoring processes, grant expenditures can be omitted or overstated on the submitted grant reporting and other grant noncompliance could be overlooked. This could result in missed funding or noncompliance with the grant agreement which could lead to adverse conditions with the grantor.
Recommendation:
We recommend that the Agency continue to improve its reconciliation process, and further its reconciliations to ensure information can be cross reference between the various reports required to be submitted. Grant reporting should be done using the general ledger expenses to ensure all expenses are being captured. Reconciliations should be presented in a clear and concise manner to enable another party to review and approve before ultimately submitting it to the grantor. This should be attainable as each grant is coded separately in the accounting system. We also recommend that the Agency require a periodic review of the adherence to the various grant compliance requirements and note such a review was performed.
Response:
AAA will create a worksheet to show unpaid balances and will create A/P transactions for those to be reported on monthly financials. Completion date March 31st, 2025. See Corrective Action Plan.