Finding Text
FINDING REFERENCE NUMBER 2025-007 FEDERAL PROGRAM (ALN – 84.048) CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION BASIC GRANT TO STATES (PERKINS V) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AWARD NUMBERS V048220052 (Fiscal Years: 07/01/2022 – 09/30/2023) COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENT MATCHING, LEVEL OF EFFORT, EARMARKING TYPE OF FINDING INTERNAL CONTROL AND COMPLIANCE – MATERIAL WEAKNESS AND MATERIAL NONCOMPLIANCE CRITERIA According to the Section 112(b) of Perkins V 20 USC 2322 (b) – A state must match, from nonfederal sources and on a dollar-for-dollar basis, the funds reserved for administration of the state plan. The matching requirement may be applied overall, rather than line-by-line, to state administrative expenditures. As established in the PRDE State Plan, the state administration expenditure would be 5%. STATEMENT OF CONDITION During the performance of our audit procedures to validate compliance with the state funds administrative 5% matching established in the PRDE State Plan, we obtained from PRDE a detail of salary paid to employees during the year 2024-2025, which represented the 5% of administrative matching established in the State Plan. Then, to corroborate payment and the accountability of the salary amounts we requested PRDE to provide the GL-200 Report, which is an internal accounting report of the Government of Puerto Rico. It is used by government agencies to reconcile payroll, related costs, and expenditures of state and Federal funds using the Treasury Department's main system. Since the GL-200 Report was not provided by PRDE, we were unable to validate the disbursement of this administrative 5% matching state funds. This represents an scope limitation. QUESTIONED COSTS None. PERSPECTIVE INFORMATION This is a systemic deficiency. During the performance of our audit procedures to validate the matching requirement, the PRDE used to provide a detail named State Position – Matching Corresponding to the 5% Administration of the Carl D. Perkins Occupational and Technical Education Act. Then we proceeded to request evidence of the corresponding expenditures of this state funds for covering the percentage established for administrative matching in the State Plan. After numerous requests for this evidence, the PRDE was unable to provide this evidence. The amount reported as matching was $1,530,733.68. STATEMENT OF CAUSE Due to the lack of data management performed by the PRDE, the GL-200 Report could not be provided as requested to support the state expenditure for compliance with the 5% matching requirements established in the State Plan. POSSIBLE ASSERTED EFFECT The PRDE being unable to provide evidence documentation (GL-200 Report), could be incurred in non-compliance with the 5% matching requirement as established in the State Plan of the program. This situation could result in a loss of Federal funding. IDENTIFICATION OF REPEAT FINDING Not previously reported. RECOMMENDATIONS We recommend that the PRDE to proper identifies the supporting documentation (GL-200 Report) to properly be able to trace and identify the administrative matching data in order to support the compliance with the 5% matching as established in the State Plan for this program.