Finding Text
Finding 2025-002, Accuracy of the SEFA Criteria: The Uniform Guidance requires that the auditee prepare a SEFA for the period covered by the auditee’s financial statements. At a minimum, the schedule shall: • List all individual Federal programs by Federal agency. • Include the name of the pass-through entity and the identifying number assigned by the passthrough entity for all Federal funds expended as a subrecipient. • Provide the total Federal awards expended for each individual Federal program and the Assistance Listing Number or other identifying number when the Assistance Listing Number information is not available. Condition and Context: During the audit, we were provided with the SEFA. The SEFA included 100% of expenditures for each grant, even if the grant was not 100% federally funded. Proper identification of federal funds and their related allocations is critical to ensure compliance with federal requirements and accurate reporting. Management subsequently reviewed the funding allocations and revised the SEFA during the audit to properly reflect only the federally funded portion of expenditures. The final SEFA included in the financial statements reflects these corrections. Cause: Internal controls over the accurate preparation and completeness of the preliminary SEFA were not operating effectively. Effect: The SEFA was misstated as initially prepared. Identification as a repeat finding: No. Questioned costs: None. Recommendation: We recommend that the Agency expand its SEFA preparation procedures to identify specific staff responsibilities for the preparation, review and approval of the SEFA. Consideration should be given to creating a master list of all foundation and government grants, and the determination of whether a grant includes federal funding be determined at the onset of the grant (if applicable, at the time that the grant application is submitted). Further, WJCS should implement a process to review and reconcile federal fund allocations, ensuring that the SEFA reflects only the federal portion of each grant, and that all amounts are accurately reported. View of responsible officials: Management acknowledges the importance of accurately reporting only the federal portion of grant expenditures in the SEFA. To address this, management is implementing enhanced procedures. During the current year, a master grants listing was developed to strengthen the grants onboarding process. As part of this process, the team will determine the federal funding details at the outset of each award, when not clearly specified in the contract, and will proactively contact funders to obtain the Assistance Listing Number (ALN)/Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number and related information. In addition, federal funding allocation percentages will be appropriately identified, calculated and reported on the SEFA. These actions are expected to improve accuracy and compliance with federal requirements.