Finding Text
2023-003 U.S. Department of Education, for the period July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023, Assistance Listing 84.425D and 84.425U, Internal Controls over the Education Stabilization Fund Criteria: The Education Stabilization Fund requires the School District to follow the Compliance Supplement Cross Cutting Requirement: Allowable Costs/Costs Principles – Documentation of Employee Time and Effort. In addition, the Education Stabilization Fund Subprograms, ESSER II and ARP ESSER are required to be tracked separately from each other. Statement of Condition: The School District will have salaried employees sign a “Certification of Federally Funded Employment” form biannually to meet the employee time and effort requirement. When performing our compliance testing, we discovered that during the fiscal year June 30, 2023, there were biannual signoffs for two employees that did not have a percent allocation between grant fund sources and listed incorrect grant funding sources. One of the two employees was paid from Title IA grant funds and ESSER II funding for September 1, 2022 – December 31, 2022, however the biannual signoff lists Title IA and ESSER III (ARP ESSER). For January 1, 2023 – June 22, 2023, the employee was funded by Title IA, ESSER II and ESSER III (ARP ESSER), however the Certification of Federally Funded Employment form for that period did not list ESSER II. The other employees’ Certification of Federally Funded Employment biannual signoff for September 1, 2022 – December 31, 2022, listed Title IA and ESSER III (ARP ESSER), however they were only paid from ESSER III (ARP ESSER). Cause: Client experienced increased workload associated with many large federal grants that disrupted normal procedures and were short staffed. When the time allocation confirmation was completed and signed off on it was not properly prepared and all employees that signed off did not confirm the correct amount of time that they were working in the different federal programs. Effect: The School District could potentially not meet the compliance requirement for Allowable Costs/Cost Principles which could jeopardize grant funding. Known Questioned Costs: None Likely Questioned Costs: None Recommendation: We recommend that at multiple levels of approval, the signor understands the compliance requirements and is familiar with the amount of time that the employee is spending in the federal programs.