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Cluster name: Student Financial Assistance Cluster Assistance Listings numbers and names: 84.007 Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants 84.033 Federal Work-Study Program 84.038 Federal Perkins Loan Program?Federal Capital Contributions 84.063 Federal Pell Grant Program 84.268 Federal Direct Student Loans Award year: July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022 Federal agency: U.S. Department of Education Compliance requirement: Special tests and provisions Questioned costs: Not applicable Condition?Contrary to federal regulation and District policies and procedures, the District?s Student Financial Assistance (SFA) offices at 2 of its 10 colleges did not disburse SFA credit balances directly to students or their parents in a timely manner after applying the awards to the student?s accounts for tuition-related fees. Specifically, for 4 of 50 students we tested, 2 of the SFA offices held the student?s SFA credit balances 1 to 6 days longer than the allowed 14 days after the award was posted to the student?s account. Effect?Students did not always have access to their SFA award monies in a timely manner to help them pay for other nontuition-related fees and expenses, which may have caused them hardships. Cause?The District-wide policies and procedures requiring reviews of students? accounts to disburse SFA credit balances to students or their parents within the required 14 days lacked detailed procedures for SFA credit balances when a manual review is required. These 4 students? accounts required the SFA offices to perform a manual review to release the SFA credit balances rather than the credit balances being processed automatically through the system, which is the typical method according to District management. Criteria?Federal regulation and District policies and procedures require the District?s SFA offices to apply each student?s SFA awards to the student?s account to satisfy tuition-related fees owed to the District. Any excess SFA awards result in a credit balance on the student?s account. When this occurs, the District?s SFA offices are required to disburse any remaining SFA award monies directly to the student or parent as soon as possible, but no later than 14 days after the award has been posted to the student?s account. If the credit balance occurred before the first day of class of that payment period, then disbursement to the student or parent would be required no later than 14 days after the first day of class of the payment period (34 CFR ?686.164[h] and District?s Title IV Credit Balance Process). Also, federal regulation requires the District?s establishing and maintaining effective internal control over federal awards that provides reasonable assurance that federal programs are being managed in compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and award terms (2 CFR ?200.303). Recommendations 1. The District?s SFA offices should complete reviews of students? accounts to disburse SFA credit balances to students or their parents within the required 14 days. 2. The District should update its District-wide policies and procedures to include detailed procedures to ensure all manual credit balances are processed within the required 14 days and monitor its SFA offices to ensure their compliance with these District-wide policies and procedures for disbursing the credit balances to students or their parents. The District?s corrective action plan at the end of this report includes the views and planned corrective action of its responsible officials. We are not required to audit and have not audited these responses and planned corrective actions and therefore provide no assurances as to their accuracy.