Finding Text
Federal Program Child Nutrition Cluster COVID-19 - National School Lunch Program ALN 10.555; passed through the Pennsylvania Departments of Education and Agriculture; Grant Period 7/1/21-6/30/22 COVID-19 - School Breakfast Program ALN 10.553; passed through the Pennsylvania Department of Education; Grant Period 7/1/21-6/30/22 Criteria Title 7 CFR 210 covers the reimbursement process under the Child Nutrition Cluster. It requires the submission of claims for reimbursement that include the number of reimbursable meals served by category and type during the period (generally a month) covered by the claim. As a subrecipient of funds passed through the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), Octorara Area School District must submit monthly claim forms to PDE, which include the number of reimbursable meals served by category (free, reduced, paid) and type (breakfast, lunch). Condition/Cause The District manually inputs the amount of meals served by location into a spreadsheet in order to obtain totals to type into the monthly claim reimbursement form. A data input error, failing to include a location in the spreadsheet for certain days, led to an incorrect number of meals reported on one claim report from our sample. Controls in place over claim reporting did not detect and correct this error before submission. Effect As a result of the claim report not being filed accurately, the District lost approximately $730 of federal subsidies that would have been received if the correct meal count was used. Questioned Costs Less than $25,000 Context We examined 4 of the monthly reimbursement claim reports submitted during the year by the District and noticed the deviations noted above in one of those reports. Total subsidy revenue for the District for the year ended June 30, 2022 was $981,173. Had the District filed an accurate claim report for the month noted above, subsidy revenue would have been $981,903. The lost revenue is 0.074% of total federal subsidy revenue for the year. No statistical sampling was used in our testing. Repeat Finding No. Recommendation We recommend that the District revisit the current procedure for verifying accuracy of meal counts prior to claim submission for areas where the control could be strengthened. The review should include comparison of the report to meal count reports for all locations to verify accuracy. The review should also include a comparison to prior monthly reports for reasonableness. We recommend that the reviewer initial the report draft or otherwise maintain support of this review. Management Response See corrective action plan included in this report package.