Finding Text
Federal Program Name: Education Stabilization Fund Federal Award Number: S425D210041, S425U210041 Federal Agency: US Department of Education CFDA No: 84.425D, 84.425U Passed Through: Illinois State Board of Education Pass-through ID Number: ESSER II 2021-4998-E2, ESSER III 2022-4998-E3 Criteria or specified requirement: Allowable Costs/Cost Principles: To be allowable grant expenditures, the expenditures must be necessary and reasonable for the performance of the federal award and be allocable thereto under the principles in 2 CFR Part 200, Subpart E. Journal entries related to grant expenditures should be reviewed for accuracy and verified as allowable grant expenditures. Condition: Expenditures were overclaimed on certain ESSER grants for fiscal year 2022 in the amount of $818,716. Questioned Costs: $636,025 was requested for reimbursement for the year ending June 30, 2022 for ISBE grant 2021-4998-E2, but was not actually spent during that time period. $180,691 was requested for reimbursement for the year ending June 30, 2022 under ISBE grant 2022-4998-E3, but the amount should have been reported on ISBE grant 2021-4998-E2. Context: Certain projects approved under the 2022 project year grants are still ongoing under the 2023 project year grants. Grant expenditure reports and future reimbursements may be able to be adjusted to correct the amounts overclaimed. Effect: The granting agency could disallow the expenditures and request the District to repay the funds. Cause: Journal entries to reclassify expenditures to grant lines on the general ledger contained errors. In one instance, certain expenditures ($603,789 ESSER II) were included twice in the total amount reclassified and the error was not detected. In a second instance ($32,236 ESSER II), the journal entry was posted from the information contained on the purchase order rather than the general ledger, and a portion of the amount had already been reclassified in a separate entry. In addition, $182,691 were charged to and claimed under the wrong grant subcode (expenditures were approved in the ESSER II grant budget but claimed under ESSER III). Recommendation: Journal entries should be reviewed for accuracy, and the District should review the general ledger detail prior to posting any entries to prevent duplicate entries from being posted. Also, the District should verify that all expenditures charged to grants are approved on the grant budget detail prior to requesting reimbursement. Management?s response: A corrective action plan has been prepared and is included in this report.