Finding Text
FINDING REFERENCE NUMBER 2025-006 FEDERAL PROGRAM (ALN – 84.027) SPECIAL EDUCATION – GRANTS TO STATES (IDEA, PART B) – SPECIAL EDUCATION CLUSTER (IDEA) (ALN – 84.173) SPECIAL EDUCATION – PRESCHOOL GRANTS (IDEA PRESCHOOL) – SPECIAL EDUCATION CLUSTER (IDEA) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AWARD NUMBERS H027A240003 (07/01/2024 – 09/30/2025); H173A240002 (07/01/2024 – 09/30/2025) COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENT MATCHING, LEVEL OF EFFORT, EARMARKING TYPE OF FINDING INTERNAL CONTROL AND COMPLIANCE – MATERIAL WEAKNESS AND MATERIAL NONCOMPLIANCE CRITERIA 34 CFR section 300.163, states for the Maintenance of Effort requirement that a State must not reduce the amount of State financial support for special education and related services for children with disabilities, or otherwise made available because of the excess costs of educating those children, below the amount of that support for the preceding fiscal year. In addition, 2 CFR Section 200.302 (a) establishes that each state must expend and account for the Federal award in accordance with state laws and procedures for expending and accounting for the state’s own funds. In addition, the state’s and the other non-Federal entity’s financial management systems, including records documenting compliance with Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Federal award, must be sufficient to permit the preparation of reports required by general and program-specific terms and conditions; and the tracing of funds to a level of expenditures adequate to establish that such funds have been used according to the Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Federal award. STATEMENT OF CONDITION As part of our audit procedures related to the Level of Effort – Maintenance of Effort requirement, we request the Annual State Application for FFY 2024 funds, and the documents that support the information included in the report. The PRDE was unable to provide evidence of the amount reported as State financial support made available for Special Education and related services, used in the computation. QUESTIONED COSTS None. PERSPECTIVE INFORMATION This deficiency is a systemic problem that is related to lack of proper internal controls over financial documentation. The Annual State Application for FFY 2024, PRDE reported $349,659,000 as the amount of State Financial Support made available for Special Education and Related Services for FY2022, in relation to FY2023, the reported amount was $350,153,444, from this amount, $5,624,444 was not provided a detail or supporting documentation. The supported amount was $344,509,000 which is not in compliance with the requirements. STATEMENT OF CAUSE The PRDE does not have an established procedure to collect and archive the documents used to prepare these reports. POSSIBLE ASSERTED EFFECT The PRDE could not be in compliance with the Level of Effort requirement. In addition, the information submitted in the report could not be corroborated for accuracy validation purposes. IDENTIFICATION OF REPEAT FINDING Not previously reported. RECOMMENDATIONS We recommend that the PRDE establishes processes and uniformity in the filing of the documents that support the information reported to the US Department of Education.