Finding Text
Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Energy Federal Program: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Information Dissemination, Outreach, Training and Technical Analysis/Assistance Assistance Listing Number: 81.117 Federal Award Identification Number(s) and Federal Award Year(s): DE-EE0009951 (2022), DE-EE0011801 (2025), DE-EE0011383 (2024) Pass-Through Entity: Not applicable—direct award Compliance Requirement: C—Cash Management Criteria or Specific Requirements: In accordance with 2 CFR §200.303, non-Federal entities are required to establish and maintain effective internal control over Federal awards that provides reasonable assurance that the entity is managing the Federal award in compliance with Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the award. In addition, 2 CFR §200.305 establishes requirements related to the management of Federal payments. Appropriate internal controls over cash management should include documented review and approval of Federal cash drawdown or reimbursement submissions prior to submission. Condition: During the review of cash management compliance for the major program, we corroborated that responsibility for preparing and reviewing Federal grant submissions was assigned to separate individuals. However, the Organization did not retain documentation evidencing review and approval prior to submission for the items tested. Accordingly, we could not verify that the review and approval control operated for those submissions. Our compliance testing did not identify exceptions to the applicable cash management requirements. Cause: Internal controls over cash management were not operating effectively to ensure that the review and approval of Federal grant submissions was consistently documented and retained. Effect: The lack of documented review and approval increases the risk that inaccurate or unsupported Federal cash drawdown or reimbursement requests could be submitted without timely detection. Perspective Information: We tested 7 Federal grant submissions for the major program during 2025 using a nonstatistical sampling method. None of the submissions tested had retained documentation evidencing review and approval prior to submission. Questioned Costs: None. Repeat Finding: None. Recommendations: We recommend that management formalize and document procedures for the review and approval of Federal cash drawdown or reimbursement submissions. The procedures should require evidence of review and approval, such as documented sign-off prior to submission. Management should also ensure that the evidence of review and approval is retained with the supporting documentation for each submission. Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Action: Management agrees with the finding. See attached corrective action plan.