Finding 1182406 (2025-001)

Reporting ALN 66.818: Brownfields Assessment Grant Criteria: The grant award requires the following reports for the Brownfields Assessment Grant: Federal Financial Reports (SF-425) done at least annually, and quarterly progress reports. Condition: For the Brownfields Assessment Grant, the Authority provided the quarterly reports for testing. We tested two of the four quarterly reports and found that not all the amounts reported agreed with the accounting records, and there was no indication of a review of the reports prior to submission. Context: The quarterly reports were submitted, and not all amounts reported agreed to the accounting records for both the Brownfields Assessment Grant reports tested. Effect: Original information submitted included inaccurate data. The reports should be reviewed to ensure accurate information is reported, and documentation of the review should be retained. Questioned Costs: None. Cause: The reasons for the differences in the reported amounts and the accounting records is a result of using the proposal amounts in the reports and not final amounts. These reports were corrected and resubmitted in September 2025 and going forward will undergo review prior to submission. Auditor Recommendation: We recommend that the Authority retain evidence of review for all submitted reports and confirm amounts reported are supported by the accounting records. Great Falls Development Authority Response: Rapid growth, many new staff members, and increased complexity of our organization proved that some of our procedural systems were no longer adequate to ensure compliance. We relied too much on single team members being solely responsible for reporting on some grants or contracts and needed to put in place a new management structure, better onboarding processes, more intensive staff training, and new compliance procedures. We have put in place three measures to ensure that all reports are submitted as required and every report is accurate. First, each grant or contract now has at least three staff team members responsible for report submittal and filing, the grant or contract manager, the direct supervisor, and our CFO. Second, all documents concerning each grant or contract are stored electronically on our server and on our Sharepoint. Third, we have put in place a more robust management structure to handle our rapid growth, creating an Executive Vice President position, an Executive Assistant position, and an Accounting Assistant position to properly manage the increased management, accounting and administrative workload. The new compliance assurance steps include: 1. All required reports, internal and external, require a coversheet that documents the review process. The coversheet contains the due date, program/grant/contract number, specific report, period of report, if the report is internal or external, and the staff lead. 2. Program Managers, Supervisors, and our Chief Financial Officer have been trained on how to verify the correct financial statements for the reporting of their specific program/grant/contract. This is a reconciliation between the program manager’s financial records and GFDA’s QuickBooks report, produced by our Chief Financial Officer. 3. When a report is completed the program manager signs that they have verified and approve the report, the direct supervisor also reviews and signs in approval, and the Chief Financial Officer reviews and signs in approval. 4. When the program manager submits the report to the reporting body, they copy their director supervisor, and both sign the document verifying the report was submitted. These Report Review and Approval sheets are then kept with the program/grant/contract financial documentation records thus retaining evidence of review for all submitted reports and confirming amounts reported are supported by the accounting records.