Finding 1205573 (2025-002)

Prior Year Finding: N/A Federal Agency: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Pass-Through Agency: Maryland Department of Environment Federal Program Name: Clean Water State Revolving Fund Assistance Listing Number: 66.458 Award Number and Year: Urban Storm Water Retrofit (7/1/2024-6/30/2025) Compliance Requirement: Suspension and Debarment Type of Finding: Significant Deficiency in Internal Control Over Compliance, Other Matters Criteria or specific requirement: Compliance: Recipients and subrecipients are prohibited from contracting with or making subawards under covered transactions to parties that are suspended, or debarred. “"Covered transactions" include contracts for goods and services awarded under a nonprocurement transaction (e.g., grant or cooperative agreement) that are expected to equal or exceed $25,000 or meet certain other criteria as specified in 2 CFR section 180.220. All nonprocurement transactions entered into by a pass-through entity (i.e., subawards to subrecipients), irrespective of award amount, are considered covered transactions, unless they are exempt as provided in 2 CFR section 180.215. When a recipient or subrecipient enters into a covered transaction with an entity at a lower tier, the recipient or subrecipient must verify that the entity, as defined in 2 CFR section 180.995 and agency adopting regulations, is not suspended or debarred or otherwise excluded from participating in the transaction. This verification may be accomplished by: (1) checking the System for Award Management (SAM) Exclusions maintained by the General Services Administration (GSA) and available at SAM.gov (2) collecting a certification from the entity, or (3) adding a clause or condition to the covered transaction with that entity (2 CFR section 180.300). Control: Per 2 CFR section 200.303(a), a nonfederal entity must: Establish and maintain effective internal control over the federal award that provides reasonable assurance that the nonfederal entity is managing the federal award in compliance with federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the federal award. These internal controls should comply with guidance in Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government issued by the Comptroller General of the United States or the Internal Control Integrated Framework, issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). Condition: The suspension and debarment status of vendors with expenditures exceeding $25,000 was not verified as required by federal regulations. Context: For five of five transactions selected for testing, the County did not verify the suspension and debarment status before entering into covered transactions with the vendors. Cause: County's procedures and internal controls over suspension and debarment are not sufficient to ensure that all vendors’ suspension and debarment status was verified timely. Effect: Failure to verify the suspension and debarment status of vendors may result in the procurement of goods or services from vendors that are suspended or debarred and result in unallowable expenditures charged to the program. Questioned costs: There are no questioned costs related to this finding as the vendors were not federally suspended or debarred. Recommendation: The County should ensure policies and procedures include the three options for determining suspension and debarment status listed in 2 CFR 180.300 and that controls are sufficient to ensure that the suspension and debarment status is verified for all vendors prior to entering into covered transactions. Views of responsible officials: There is no disagreement with the audit finding.