Finding Text
Finding Type. Immaterial Noncompliance / Significant Deficiency in Internal Control over Compliance (Eligibility). Program. Student Financial Assistance Cluster; U.S. Department of Education; Assistance Listing Numbers 84.007, 84.033, 84.063, 84.268; Award Numbers P007A222008, P033A222008, P063P221633 and P268K231633. Criteria. Students that receive Pell may not receive more than six scheduled awards (12 semester, or the equivalent) as measured by the percentage of "lifetime eligibility used" field in the Common Origination and Disbursement ("COD") system. In addition, the maximum percentage of lifetime eligibility that can be used for student eligibility is 600%. Condition. At the beginning of the Fall 2022 semester, a student was approaching their 600% lifetime Pell limit. When a student is between 500% and 600%, the College is supposed to perform a manual calculation so that the Pell award comes close to the maximum limit but does not exceed it. However, due to mistakenly being marked as full-time instead of three-quarters-time, the calculation resulted in a payment of $3,761 instead of $2,821, an overpayment of Pell by $940. Cause. This condition was caused by a lack of detailed review of the manual Pell calculation before distribution of funds to the student. Effect. As a result, the College exceeded the Pell Lifetime Eligibility and overpaid a student with $940 in excess funds. It is our understanding that on September 15, 2023, the College was repaid by the student affected by the overpayment which was remitted to the Department of Education. Questioned Costs. No costs were required to be questioned as a result of this finding, inasmuch as our testing did not reveal any unallowed costs. Recommendation. We recommend that the College implement a secondary review process of not only the calculation, but for the determination of information that is used in the calculation as well. View of Responsible Officials. Management agrees with this finding and has prepared a Corrective Action Plan.