Finding Text
Information on Federal Program:
U.S. Department of Education – Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF)
AL#84.425E, 84.425F, 84.425K
Criteria – The granting agency requires that the grantee prepare financial and programmatic
reports on a quarterly and annual basis. Internal controls should be adequately designed and
implemented to allow for the accurate and timely preparation of these reports.
Condition – For the year ended June 30, 2023, we identified grant reports that were prepared and
reviewed by the same individual prior to being submitted to the granting agency.
Cause – Internal controls, while appropriately designed, were not implemented consistently when
staff turnover created a lack of independent review in the grant reporting process.
Effect or Potential Effect – There is a potential that grant reports will be submitted that were not
accurately prepared or included misleading programmatic information.
Questioned Costs – None noted.
Context – As part of our testing, we selected the quarterly and annual reports to view
documentation to support the independent review of the grant reports prior to submission. Of the
quarterly and annual reports selected for testing, we were unable to view documentation of this
review.
Repeating Finding – This is not a repeat finding.
Recommendation – An additional staff member should be identified, that possesses the
appropriate knowledge, to review the grant reports after they have been prepared to ensure
accurate submissions to the granting agency.
View of Responsible Officials
We do agree with this finding. This occurred when we had turnover in positions. While hiring for
one of the positions, one person was doing both tasks. We do not see this happening again as
we have hired a new employee to prepare the quarterly and annual reports.