Finding 1156544 (2024-002)

Material Weakness Repeat Finding

Requirement

Questioned Costs

Year

2024

Accepted

2025-09-30

Audit: 368886

Organization: County of Mifflin (PA)

Auditor: Zelenkofske Axelrod LLC

AI Summary

Core Issue: The County is not properly tracking funds for the Children & Youth Agency Programs, leading to commingling of grant and operating funds.
Impacted Requirements: This situation violates federal financial management standards, specifically regarding Cash Management, Matching, and Interest Earned.
Recommended Follow-Up: Establish a separate fund for the Children & Youth Agency Programs to ensure compliance and better tracking of restricted funds.

Finding Text

Finding 2024-002: Cash Management/Matching/Interest Earned Foster Care – ALN 93.658 and County Children & Youth Agency Programs Criteria: Pursuant to 2 CFR part 200 section 302, an entity’s financial management systems must be sufficient to permit the tracing of funds to a level of expenditures adequate to establish that such funds have been used in accordance with the Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Federal award. Condition: As a result of our testing of Cash Management, we noted that County Children & Youth Agency Programs funds are included in the operating funds of the County. Cause: The accounting system is not configured for the tracking of separate funding streams. Effect: The County is not in compliance with the Cash Management, Matching, or Interest Earned requirements and internal controls are not functioning as designed. The funding streams are being commingled and could be used to fund expenditures not related to the grant programs. In addition, the County was unable to clearly demonstrate their match to the County Children & Youth Agency Programs. The finding was a repeat of Finding 2023-002. Questioned Costs: The amount of questioned costs, if any, is indeterminable. Recommendation: The County should establish a separate fund to account for the activity of the County Children & Youth Agency Programs. Management’s Response: The County agrees with the finding and will continue to work to match the various revenue and expense sources for County Children & Youth Agency Programs account maintained in the County accounting system to ensure that the proper starting fund balance is generated. Additionally, the County has worked with the fiscal manager for its Children and Youth Agency to provide better compatibility between the accounting system utilized through the County Children & Youth Agency Programs with its corresponding accounting system utilized through the County’s financial department; this effort assists with establishing the fund balance necessary to maintain a separate fund to better track the restricted funds associated with the County Children & Youth Agency Programs.

Corrective Action Plan

Finding 2024-002: Cash Management / Matching / Interest Earned. Contact Person: Duane K. McMullen Jr., Director of Fiscal Affairs. Recommendation: The County should establish a separate fund to account for the activity of the Children and Youth program. Response: The County agrees with the finding and created a new fund – Fund 07 – in the County’s accounting software and will begin creating corresponding revenue and expense accounts to match the existing structure within the new fund. This has been a work in process and has been slow to implement. Due to the turnover of the Director of Fiscal Affairs. The new Director of Fiscal Affairs is currently working to correct missing months transfers, and hopes to have the process stream lined once all past entries are posted. The County also opened a separate checking account at The Juniata Valley Bank for the Children and Youth Fund for all revenue and expenses beginning January 1, 2025. The County continues to engage an external third-party contractor provider familiar with Children and Youth Agency financial matters to assist in the transition. The County also made the affirmative decision to capitalize that fund with the prior year’s County-match at the start of the calendar year and continue to fund, as needed, throughout the year to ensure the necessary County match is attained. The Children and Youth Agency will continue to ensure compatibility and proper recording in MUNIS, the County accounting system, of all financial transactions to match with the internal accounting system maintained by the Children and Youth Agency. Action Planned: Post-audit submission, the County Director of Fiscal Affairs will continue to engage with the external service provider and the Children and Youth Finance Director and overall Child and Youth Agency Director to monitor proper posting of financial transactions in the appropriate fund to match all transactions posted in the internal accounting system maintained by the Children and Youth Agency. Date for Completion: December 31, 2025.

Other Findings in this Audit

1156545 2024-003

Material Weakness Repeat

Programs in Audit

ALN	Program Name	Expenditures
93.658	Foster Care Title IV-E	$801,248
93.659	Adoption Assistance	$700,628
93.563	Child Support Services	$460,864
21.023	Emergency Rental Assistance Program	$431,209
20.205	Highway Planning and Construction	$219,465
93.556	Marylee Allen Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program	$96,610
93.667	Social Services Block Grant	$84,442
93.958	Block Grants for Community Mental Health Services	$68,791
10.569	Emergency Food Assistance Program (food Commodities)	$61,926
93.323	Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases (elc)	$59,098
16.593	Residential Substance Abuse Treatment for State Prisoners	$49,122
97.042	Emergency Management Performance Grants	$47,508
10.568	Emergency Food Assistance Program (administrative Costs)	$46,786
93.558	Temporary Assistance for Needy Families	$29,537
93.645	Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Services Program	$24,579
20.600	State and Community Highway Safety	$21,244
93.090	Guardianship Assistance	$20,117
93.674	John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood	$16,725
20.616	National Priority Safety Programs	$15,193
16.575	Crime Victim Assistance	$11,455
93.778	Medical Assistance Program	$7,505
16.738	Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program	$6,362
14.228	Community Development Block Grants/state's Program and Non-Entitlement Grants in Hawaii	$2,995
93.472	Title IV-E Prevention Program	$2,630
97.024	Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program	$983