Finding Text
Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Federal Program Name: Special Education Cluster
Assistance Listing Number: 84.027, 84.173
Pass-Through Agency: Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Pass-Through Number(s): 240-542976-2022-0308, 240-689599-2023-0308, 240-000558-2024-0308,
252-546624-2022-0308, 274-000662-2024-0308, 262-689600-2023-0308, 262-000559-2024-0308, and
264-547238-2022-0308
Award Period: July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2024
Type of Finding:
• Significant Deficiency in Internal Control over Compliance
• Other Matters
Criteria or specific requirement: 2 CFR Part 200 Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Award requires compliance with the provisions of Allowable Costs/Cost Principles. The City of Waltham, Massachusetts should have internal controls designed to ensure compliance with those provisions. Payroll systems must be based on records that accurately reflect the work performed and supported by a system of internal controls that provides reasonable assurance that charges are accurate; allowable and reasonable; and properly allocated.
Condition: Internal controls were not in place to ensure time and effort documentation was consistently tracked and supported.
Questioned costs: $3,084
Context: For 4 of 40 payroll transactions tested, we identified the City did not maintain documentation of time and effort supporting the charges to the program.
Cause: Procedures are not in place to maintain the required supporting documentation for the salaries charged to the grant.
Effect: The salary charges are subject to disallowance and are considered questioned costs.
Repeat Finding: The finding is a repeat of a finding in the immediately prior year. Prior year finding number was 2023-002.
Recommendation: We recommend management implement procedures to ensure that salaries charged to the grant are appropriate and are supported by the required time and effort support and that a consistent policy is applied.
Views of responsible officials: There is no disagreement with the audit finding.