Finding Text
Ineffective Grant Management - Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pass-Through Agency: MN DEED Assistance Listing Number(s):17.258, 17.278 and 17.259 (WIOA Cluster) Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Pass-Through Agencies: MN DEED and various counties Assistance Listing Number: 93.558 (TANF) Compliance Requirement: Reporting Criteria: Effective grant management requires regular monitoring of budget-to-actual performance to ensure compliance with funder requirements and accurate financial reporting. Timely reviews help prevent reporting errors and support informed decision-making. Condition: Grant budget-to-actual reviews are not being completed on a regular basis. As a result, discrepancies between actual expenditures and budgeted amounts are not identified timely. For the WIOA Cluster 2 of the 7 reports tested required corrections and resubmission to funders. Cause: The Organization lacks a standardized process or schedule for conducting grant budget reviews. Additionally, limited staff capacity and competing priorities have contributed to delays in financial oversight. Effect: Heightened risk of non-compliance with grant requirements, which may result in delayed reimbursements from funders, reputational damage, and increased administrative workload due to report resubmissions and corrective actions. Questioned costs: None Recommendation: Establish a standardized process for reviewing grant budgets against actual expenditures, with clearly defined roles and timelines. Deliver targeted training to relevant staff on grant reporting protocols and variance analysis. Implement a cross-functional review procedure prior to report submission to ensure accuracy and completeness. Responsible Officials Response: Since migrating to the new accounting software, CMJTS program managers have better access to reporting for their budgets. Budgets are also loaded into the system by month, and program managers are then able to track program to date expenses versus the what had been planned. Additionally, CMJTS accounting staff has moved to ‘real-time accounting’, meaning that all transactions are being recorded right away in order to flow through to program manager reports. Additionally, the CMJTS Finance Manager meets with program managers on a monthly basis to review budgets and provide additional training. These additional steps empower the program managers to take ownership of their budgets and be able to make more informed decisions on running their programs.