CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN
Oversight Agency for Audit: U.S. Department of Treasury
The City of Peabody, Massachusetts respectfully submits the following corrective action plan for the year ended June 30, 2023.
Name and address of independent public accounting firm:
Powers & Sullivan, LLC
100 Quannapowitt Parkway, Suite 101
Wakefield, MA 01880
Audit period: July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023
The finding from the June 30, 2023, schedule of findings and questioned costs is discussed below. The finding is numbered consistently with the number assigned in the schedule.
FINDINGS—FEDERAL AWARD PROGRAMS AUDITS
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Passed through Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies
Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies Federal Assistance Listing No. 84.010
2023-004: Eligibility of Schools and Allocations to Schools
Compliance Requirement: Eligibility
Type of Finding: Compliance and Material Weakness in Internal Control Over Compliance
Criteria or Specific Requirement: Grantees must determine which schools or school attendance areas are eligible to participate in the program. When determining eligibility, grantees must select a poverty measure from among one of the allowable data sources. Grantees must serve eligible schools or attendance areas in rank order according to their percentage of poverty. Grantees must also provide equitable services to eligible private school students and homeless students prior to allocating funds to the eligible public schools using similar allowable data sources.
Condition: The City was required to determine which schools or school attendance areas, including private school students and homeless students, were eligible to participate in the grant program. The City was also required to ensure that eligible schools or school attendance areas were served in rank order in accordance with their percentage of poverty. The supporting documentation was not available upon request and was not provided in a timely manner. The information required to perform this testing was requested in May 2023, and was not provided until January 2024, after several repeated requests were made throughout that time.
Context: The City did not provide sufficient documentation to demonstrate the compliance of its eligibility determinations or allocations to schools in a timely manner.
Effect: The City has not complied with the grant requirements.
Cause: Management has not established guidelines and procedures to ensure that documentation regarding eligibility determinations and allocations is retained and filed in an organized manner that is made readily available upon request.
Questioned Costs: None reported.
Recommendation: The City should implement internal control procedures to ensure compliance with all grant requirements including the completion and retention of all documentation regarding eligibility determinations and allocations to schools. The documentation should be filed in an organized manner and should be readily available upon request.
Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Actions: The School District will implement internal control procedures to ensure that the required documentation is completed, retained and maintained in an organized manner. Management plans to implement these procedures in 2024.
If the Oversight Agency has questions regarding this plan, please call Samuel Rippin, School Business Manager, at 978-536-6520.
Sincerely yours,
Samuel Rippin
School Business Manager
City of Peabody