Finding 372571 (2020-002)

Finding 2020-002 – Significant Deficiency Federal Award. No. 84.268 U.S. Department of Education Student Financial Aid Cluster Criteria: According to the 2019-2020 COD Technical Reference and 2019-2020 SFA Handbook, the University must report accurate disbursement dates to Common Origination Disbursement (COD) for all direct loan disbursements made to students. Condition: In our nonstatistical sample of 40 students, we noted 36 students whose disbursement dates listed in the University’s student records (1/17/20) differed by one day from the disbursement dates reported to COD (1/16/20) for the students’ direct loans disbursed in the Spring 2020 semester. In our nonstatistical sample of 40 students, we noted 9 students whose disbursement dates listed in the University’s student records (8/23/19) differed by one day from the disbursement dates reported to COD (8/22/19) for the students’ direct loans disbursed in the Fall 2020 semester. Effect: Improperly reported disbursement dates could impact the amount of interest charged to the student. Questioned Costs: There were no questioned costs identified related to this finding. Cause: The University had delayed their disbursement processing on the anticipated disbursement dates reported to COD which resulted in some of the disbursements not being made by the University until after 12 AM the next morning. Therefore, many of the disbursements intended to be processed on the anticipated disbursement date were not processed until the next day, and the University did not check to ensure that the disbursement dates matched as it was anticipated the disbursement processing would be completed within the anticipated disbursement date reported to COD. Recommendation: The Financial Aid office should put in place controls that would ensure that all disbursements would be processed on the anticipated disbursement dates as planned and controls that would detect if disbursements were processed at a later date and adjustments to amounts reported to COD were necessary. View of Responsible Officials (Unaudited): See the corrective action plan provided by management included in their response included with this report. Anticipated Completion Date: August 2020 Responsible Official: Director of Student Financial Aid