Finding 1168156 (2025-001)

Material Weakness Repeat Finding
Requirement
B
Questioned Costs
-
Year
2025
Accepted
2026-01-07

AI Summary

  • Core Issue: There is a significant deficiency in internal controls over compliance, specifically regarding allowable costs for the Child Nutrition Cluster.
  • Impacted Requirements: Section 200 of the Code of Federal Regulations mandates strong internal controls to ensure compliance with cost principles for grant activities.
  • Recommended Follow-Up: Management should review and improve internal controls for employee time approval to better detect and correct coding errors.

Finding Text

Finding No. 2025‐001: Allowable Costs and Activities - Significant deficiency in internal control over compliance and compliance finding. Child Nutrition Cluster Criteria: Section 200 of the Code of Federal Regulations requires recipients to implement robust internal controls to ensure compliance with cost principles for all activities allocated to the grant. Condition: During allowable cost and activities testing for the Child Nutrition Cluster, 3 out of 26 payroll transactions tested included employee time that was unrelated to approved grant activities. Cause: The School's internal controls related to employee time were not operating effectively and employee mistakes in coding did not get detected and corrected in a timely manner. Effect: Employee time was allocated to the Child Nutrition Cluster when the employee was not in a position that was related to grant activities. Questioned Costs: None Recommendation: Management should reassess their internal controls related to employee time approval to ensure it is sufficient to appropriately detect and correct any error in fund coding. Management’s Response: See corrective action plan.

Corrective Action Plan

No. 2025-001 Subject: Allowable Costs and Activities ‐ Significant deficiency in internal control over compliance and compliance finding. Name of Contact Person: Byron Jones, CFO Phone Number: (480) 270-5438 Anticipated Completion Date: June 30, 2026 Corrective Action: We will strengthen internal controls over employee time coding by implementing enhanced review procedures to ensure only allowable Child Nutrition activities are charged to the grant. Supervisors and the accounting team will review all payroll coding charged to the Child Nutrition Cluster to verify that the employee’s position and duties align with approved grant activities. These improved internal procedures will provide proper compliance over allowable costs. We will also conduct an annual audit of all grant-funded employee positions at the start of each school year, reviewed by the grants team, HR, and accounting, to verify the accuracy of all employee costing allocations to federal grants and to ensure any miscoding errors are identified and corrected in a timely manner.

Categories

Allowable Costs / Cost Principles School Nutrition Programs Significant Deficiency

Other Findings in this Audit

  • 1168152 2025-001
    Material Weakness Repeat
  • 1168153 2025-001
    Material Weakness Repeat
  • 1168154 2025-001
    Material Weakness Repeat
  • 1168155 2025-001
    Material Weakness Repeat

Programs in Audit

ALN Program Name Expenditures
10.553 SCHOOL BREAKFAST PROGRAM $153,333
84.027 SPECIAL EDUCATION GRANTS TO STATES $63,712
10.555 NATIONAL SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM $33,211
84.010 TITLE I GRANTS TO LOCAL EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES $18,939
84.367 SUPPORTING EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION STATE GRANTS (FORMERLY IMPROVING TEACHER QUALITY STATE GRANTS) $15,238
84.424 STUDENT SUPPORT AND ACADEMIC ENRICHMENT PROGRAM $5,916
84.173 SPECIAL EDUCATION PRESCHOOL GRANTS $2,300