Finding 1220798 (2025-002)

Material Weakness Repeat Finding
Requirement
B
Questioned Costs
-
Year
2025
Accepted
2026-06-29

AI Summary

  • Core Issue: Internal controls over payroll records were inadequate, leading to inaccurate wage charges to the federal award.
  • Impacted Requirements: Compliance with 2 CFR 200.430(g)(1) was not met, resulting in questioned costs of $1,277.
  • Recommended Follow-Up: Implement stronger internal controls to ensure accurate billing of wage expenses to federal awards.

Finding Text

2025-002 Significant Deficiency in Internal Controls Over Noncompliance and Noncompliance over Major Programs Criteria Internal controls and other compliance knowledge should support the wages billed to the federal award. Per 2 CFR 200.430(g)(1), "charges to federal awards for salaries and wages must be based on records that accurately reflect the work performed" and "be supported by a system of internal control that provides reasonable assurance that the charges are accurate, allowable and properly allocated." Condition Internal control and adherence to compliance were not followed with regards to records that accurately reflect the work performed. Questioned costs Total questioned cost of $1,277 based on the payroll transactions tested for one employee that were not accurately supported with records that reflected the work performed. Context During our payroll testing, of the ten payroll transactions we tested, one employee had two payroll transactions that indicated the wages billed to the federal award were not accurately supported by the employee's timesheet. We expanded our payroll testing and sampled four additional transactions for this employee. Of the six total payroll transactions tested for this employee, none of them were accurately supported by their timesheet for hours worked on the federal award. Cause The error was caused by not applying adequate number of controls necessary for billing wage expenses to the federal award. Effect The Federal award was incorrectly charged with unreasonable wages. Repeat Finding No. Auditor's Recommendations We recommend that Chamber implement stronger internal controls over billing wage expenses to the federal award.

Corrective Action Plan

Moving forward, the Chamber will use an employee’s timesheet to bill wages to federal awards. When preparing reimbursement requests, the staff will calculate the wage amount that is equal to the number of hours each employee self-attested to working to the federal grant by coding the hours on their timesheet for the applicable pay periods. If a true-up of wage expenses is done at any time during the cycle of the federal grant, the Chamber will maintain adequate documentation (the employee timesheets) to indicate how the true-up was calculated. The calculation provided by the staff will be reviewed by the Executive Director prior to the reimbursement request being submitted to the granting agency.

Categories

Allowable Costs / Cost Principles Significant Deficiency Internal Control / Segregation of Duties

Other Findings in this Audit

  • 1220797 2025-001
    Material Weakness Repeat

Programs in Audit

ALN Program Name Expenditures
59.059 CONGRESSIONAL GRANTS $930,000
14.218 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANTS/ENTITLEMENT GRANTS $128,153
21.027 CORONAVIRUS STATE AND LOCAL FISCAL RECOVERY FUNDS $51,442