Finding Text
Finding 2023-001: Education Stabilization Fund Reporting
Federal Agency: Department of Education
Program: COVID-19 Education Stabilization Fund 84.425
Criteria: In accordance with the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund reporting requirements found in the 2 CFR Part 200, quarterly reports for institutional portions of the grant are to be completed and include the amounts of institutional funds spent. In addition, the annual report is to include the amount expended for both student and institutional portions of the grant and the number of students awarded student grant funds through December 31, 2022.
Condition: The internal control system to ensure that this program was fully in compliance with all reporting requirements was not operating effectively. The amount of institutional expenses reported on the quarterly reports and posted to WCCC’s website initially did not agree to the 2023 institutional funds reported on the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards. Various reports, including prior year reports, were updated after being posted to WCCC’s website. WCCC was able to produce reports for all quarters of the grant period that reconciles to the institutional fund expenditures reported on the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards, however, a process is not in place to ensure that the reports initially prepared and posted to WCCC’s website are accurate. The annual report also incorrectly reported the number of unduplicated students who received grant funding during calendar year 2022.
Cause: Procedures in place to ensure that the annual and quarterly reports were completed accurately were not adequate.
Effect: Westmoreland County Community College (WCCC) was not in compliance with all annual and quarterly reporting requirements.
Repeat Finding: This is a repeat finding of 2022-002.
Questioned costs: None
Recommendation: We recommend that WCCC implement a procedure to ensure that all required Education Stabilization Fund reporting is completed accurately.
View of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Action: All the reports were filed throughout the grant in a timely manner but not always correctly. A former employee filed these reports. Current staff have been working to get all the reports corrected and posted back to the college's web site.
The College grant writing/compliance employee unfortunately left after 1 month. WCCC continues to advertise for this position along with the Asst Controller position for Grants and Foundation.