Finding Text
2022-002 Program Affected – Child Nutrition Cluster – Assistance Listing No. 10.555, 10.556, 10.559
Criteria: The Uniform Guidance requires the local program operator to submit monthly claims for reimbursement to the administering agency. All meals claimed for reimbursement must meet federal requirements and be served to eligible children.
Condition: Audit sampling revealed variances between total meals claimed in monthly food service claims and the meal count sheets that the District used to track meals served to students.
Cause: Meal counts were not accurately reported on the claim forms in the months sampled.
Effect: Excess reimbursement amounts claimed may be disallowed and, if any, the excess may need to be returned to the federal agency.
Questioned Cost: Unknown.
Repeat Finding: Yes.
Auditor’s Recommendation: We recommend the District set up a review procedure to review the claims and reconcile the claims to actual meals served.
District Response: The District has reviewed procedures and implemented a system to review the claims and reconcile the claims to actual meals served. This will be done by entering the actual meals served in our computer system (Skyward) on an ongoing basis at the point of service, meaning the meals are entered daily into the system as students/staff go through the food service line at their school. This is a change from the past–during COVID, when all meals were served free to all students. At that time, our previous food service director used a manual, “tally” method, as a result of being short staffed. Now, we have a new food service director and we are going to keep all of our meal counts up to date in Skyward, as opposed to using the manual, “tally” method from the past two years.