Finding Text
2024 – 002: Schedule of Expenditure of Federal Awards (SEFA) Preparation Type of Finding: • Material Weakness in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting Condition: During testing, it was noted the School’s prepared SEFA did not properly reconcile to the underlying School records, which required additional adjustments of approximately $583,000. Criteria or specific requirement: 2 CFR 200.510(b) states: Schedule of expenditures of federal awards. The auditee must also prepare a schedule of expenditures of federal awards for the period covered by the auditee's financial statements which must include the total Federal awards expended as determined in accordance with § 200.502 Basis for determining federal awards expended. While not required, the auditee may choose to provide information requested by federal awarding agencies and pass-through entities to make the schedule easier to use. For example, when a federal program has multiple federal award years, the auditee may list the amount of federal awards expended for each federal award year separately. At a minimum, the schedule must: • List individual Federal programs by Federal agency. For a cluster of programs, provide the cluster name, list individual Federal programs within the cluster of programs, and provide the applicable Federal agency name. For R&D, total Federal awards expended must be shown either by individual Federal award or by Federal agency and major subdivision within the Federal agency. For example, the National Institutes of Health is a major subdivision in the Department of Health and Human Services. • For Federal awards received as a subrecipient, the name of the pass-through entity and identifying number assigned by the pass-through entity must be included. • Provide total Federal awards expended for each individual Federal program and the Assistance Listing number or other identifying number when the Assistance Listing information is not available. For a cluster of programs also provide the total for the cluster. • Include the total amount provided to subrecipients from each Federal program. • For loan or loan guarantee programs described in §200.502 Basis for determining federal awards expended, paragraph (b), identify in the notes to the schedule the balances outstanding at the end of the audit period. This is in addition to including the total Federal awards expended for loan or loan guarantee programs in the schedule. • Include notes that describe that significant accounting policies used in preparing the schedule, and note whether or not the auditee elected to use the 10% de minimis cost rate as covered in § 200.414 Indirect (F&A) costs. Effect: Without a proper system of internal controls in place that operated effectively, material misstatements of the SEFA remained undetected. Cause: Management had not established an effective system of internal controls that would have ensured proper reporting of the SEFA. Repeat finding: Yes – 2023-004. Recommendation: We recommend the school implement internal controls over the SEFA including a reconciliation and review process before submission. Views of responsible officials and planned corrective actions: There is no disagreement with the audit finding.