Finding 35960 (2022-005)

Significant Deficiency
Requirement
B
Questioned Costs
$1
Year
2022
Accepted
2023-03-12
Audit: 34521
Organization: Family Service Association (CA)

AI Summary

  • Core Issue: Payroll processing errors led to incorrect allocation of costs, overstating expenses for the Senior Nutrition Program.
  • Impacted Requirements: Compliance with 2 CFR Part 200.405 on direct cost allocation principles was not met.
  • Recommended Follow-Up: Implement employee training for payroll processing and ensure manual entries are reviewed and approved by a supervisor.

Finding Text

CFDA Title and Number: 93.045 ? Aging Cluster Name of Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Internal Control over Compliance: Allowable Cost/Cost Principles Criteria: 2 CFR Part 200.405 requires the following direct cost allocation principles: If a cost benefits two or more projects or activities in proportions that can be determined without undue effort or cost, the cost must be allocated to the projects based on the proportional benefit. If a cost benefits two or more projects or activities in proportions that cannot be determined because of the interrelationship of the work involved, then the costs may be allocated or transferred to benefitted projects on any reasonable documented basis. Condition: The Association staff made an error when processing the payroll entries for the pay date of January 26, 2022. Thus, they had to remove the batch for that period and manually post every transaction for the period of January 1 to 15, 2022. When the staff posted the entries, they did not allocate the costs to the correct program/site for the employees who worked for multiple programs, causing payroll expenditures for that period to be charged to one specific program. Cause: Manual entry error. Effect or Potential Effect: Overstatement of payroll costs charged to the Senior Nutrition Program. Questioned Cost: $25,808 (We selected 40 items to be tested out of 2,132 total items. 1 out of 40 items was noted to have exceptions. The questioned cost of $25,808 is a projected amount.) Repeat of a Prior-Year Finding: No. Recommendation: We recommend to provide employee training to improve payroll processing and avoid errors. Additionally, manual postings should be reviewed and approved by a supervisor.

Corrective Action Plan

Management?s Response: In January 2022, during the processing of FSA payroll, the system had a major error that caused for an emergency payroll processing to take place to meet the Labor and Wages standards, so this payroll was processed not knowing that it was paid based on home allocation rather then time sheets allocations. However, the majority of FSA employees were allocated to one department program or grant. Reassigning of location only occur within staffing emergencies within the same program. Due to this occurrence, FSA started to investigated a third-party payroll servicing company that uphold our standard of functional time keeping and allocation and selected ADP. Gross pay information for each employee is extracted from the Payroll Journal and entered into the Labor Distribution. Periodically, time sheet information is entered into the Labor Distribution and percentages developed or functional time which are used to allocate gross pay to each program based on total time worked. The Labor Distribution is used to post the allocated payroll costs to the General Ledger, or billing worksheet, and the related costs then posted to the billing or reporting document.

Categories

Questioned Costs Allowable Costs / Cost Principles

Other Findings in this Audit

  • 35959 2022-004
    Significant Deficiency
  • 35961 2022-006
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612401 2022-004
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612402 2022-005
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612403 2022-006
    Significant Deficiency

Programs in Audit

ALN Program Name Expenditures
93.045 Special Programs for the Aging_title Iii, Part C_nutrition Services $1.96M
93.575 Child Care and Development Block Grant $791,397
10.558 Child and Adult Care Food Program $598,192
16.575 Crime Victim Assistance $129,527
14.218 Community Development Block Grants/entitlement Grants $3,533