Finding Text
31 C.F.R. § 35.4(c), Reporting and Requests for Other Information, states during the period of performance, recipients shall provide to the Secretary or her delegate, as applicable, periodic reports providing detailed accounting of the uses of funds.
The Ohio Department of Public Safety, Office of Criminal Justice Services (OCJS) Standard Federal Subgrant Conditions Handbook, Chapter 4: Corresponding and Reporting, Section: Quarterly Subgrant Reports states that all OCJS projects are required to submit Quarterly Subgrant Reports, which shall be submitted on the last day of the month following the calendar quarter end. Additionally, this Handbook states that a report must be submitted every quarter, even when there have been zero expenditures or if a payment is not being requested.
The Sheriff's Department did not have internal control procedures in place regarding Federal grant reporting for the Retention Incentive and Operating Clean Up grants. Quarterly reports were due the last day of the month following quarter end and were not submitted timely for Quarter 2 or Quarter 4 for the Retention Incentive Grant and were not submitted timely for Quarter 3 or 4 for the Operation Cleanup Grant. Additionally, quarterly reports were not filed for the 1st or 3rd quarter for the Retention Incentive grant or the 2nd quarter for the Operation Cleanup grant. We also noted some quarterly reports were not accepted by the grantor and had to be resubmitted prior to approval. Finally, we noted that once reports were submitted, they could not be modified but due to errors in the reporting of the Retention Incentive Grant, a revision made in 2024 noted corrected amounts for each quarter of 2023.
The Sheriff's Department reported both grants in the same county fund even though separate quarterly reports were required. As such, we were unable to determine which grant certain disbursements related to and therefore were unable to determine if individual grant quarterly reports agreed to the underlying ledgers. We did note material differences when comparing the sum of the two grants reported expenditures each quarter to the underlying accounting system. We noted an initial variance between total reported expenditures at year end compared to the county ledgers which resulted in an understatement of $16,693 in reported expenditures. Using the 2023 corrected amounts from the revision filed in 2024 resulted in an overall overstatement of $2,026 of reported amounts when compared to the underlying ledgers.
Further, Municipal Court did not have internal control procedures in place regarding Federal grant reporting for the Violence Reduction grant. Quarterly reports were due the last day of the month following quarter end and were not submitted timely for Quarter 5. In addition, material discrepancies were found in the expenditures reported on these reports compared to the underlying accounting system. Quarter 2 was understated $26,783 but then corrected by the Grants Administrator on Quarter 3 filing. In addition, the year-to-date total expenditures reported on Quarter 5 reconciled to the underlying accounting ledgers for the year. Failure to timely submit the required reports to the pass-through entity could result in material noncompliance and potential loss of future funding.
The Sheriff and Municipal Court offices' should establish internal control procedures to help ensure all required reports are submitted timely and agree to underlying ledgers.