Finding Text
Finding No.: 2024-028 Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services AL Program: 93.323 Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases Federal Award No.: NU50CK000558 Area: Reporting Questioned Costs: $0 Criteria: Grant agreements stipulate the type and frequency of reports to be submitted. Furthermore, timely, accurate and complete reporting should be facilitated by an internal control framework conducive to effective monitoring, preparation and independent review of required reports. Lastly, financial reports should reconcile with underlying accounting records. 2 CFR 200.303(a) states that a recipient of a Federal award must establish, document, and maintain effective internal control over the Federal award that provides reasonable assurance that the recipient is managing the Federal award in compliance with Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Federal award. These internal controls should align with the 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 1: There are no policies and procedures to monitor the due dates of required reports and track the status of report submissions. It does not appear that RepMar has developed means to monitor compliance with reporting requirements. Condition 2: RepMar uses the ELC Cooperative Agreement Management Platform (CAMP) portal to report financial progress to the Federal Grantor. RepMar was unable to provide evidence that such reporting occurred during the audit period. Furthermore, no evidence was provided indicating that the financial information reported thereon agreed to RepMar’s underlying accounting records. Cause: RepMar lacks adequate internal control policies and procedures governing effective monitoring, preparation and independent review of required reports. Moreover, RepMar lacks adequate internal control policies and procedures over retention of reports submitted to grantors and the underlying accounting records. Effect or Potential Effect: Sufficient appropriate audit evidence supporting compliance with applicable reporting requirements were not obtained which results in report modification. No questioned cost is reported as the condition relates to inadequacy of internal control policies and procedures governing monitoring, preparation, independent review and retention of required reports and the underlying accounting records. Identification as a Repeat Finding: 2023-018 Views of Responsible Officials: Condition 1: ELC Program Leads complete and submit Work Plan Progress Reports through the ELC CAMP as required by the grant. To monitor compliance, ELC will notify the Ministry of Finance of submitted reports and provide MOF with view-only access to relevant files and supporting documentation as needed. Condition 2: The ELC Program Leads completes the required financial reports in ELC CAMP using information provided by the MOF Fiscal Officer and submits the reports through ELC CAMP and GrantSolutions. ELC will notify MOF of each submission to support compliance monitoring. To strengthen the process, MOF and MOHHS will establish a formal reporting process. MOHHS will maintain a tracking tool with required reports, reporting periods, due dates, and submission status, and share it with MOF. MOF will have access to ELC CAMP and the MOHHS GrantSolutions account to retrieve reports as needed.