CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN (Concerning Audit Finding 2023-001)
Contact Person Responsible for Corrective Action: Lucie Tabor, Director of Finance Corrective Action: The Maine School Administrative District 27 will take the following actions to address finding 2023-001: As a Federal response to COVID-19, the Federal and State Governments provided grants to school districts to address the COVID-19 pandemic response for Schools. The CARES and ESSER Grants were initially distributed with a very short timeline on spending, initially by the end on December 2020, then subsequently extended to March 31 st and then extended beyond with additional Grants provided (ESSER I, 2 and ESSER ARP). This made for a very confusing and intense period to spend, track and coordinate spending and projects across three School Districts that the Valley Unified Education Service Center oversees. Also, the initial Grant that was provided to school Districts (CARES/ESSER I) were done so without clear directives from the Department of Education as to whether these were State Funds or Federal Funds . We were well under way with Committing and spending the funds before it was communicated that the initial funds were State funds (CARES), but subsequent ones were Federal Funds. By then, most of our projects were well under way and/or had been committed and we were now dealing with COVID-19 illnesses, remote school days, school shutdowns and delays/difficulties getting our products and contractors to pro vi de
their services on the timeline we needed for the grants. These grants ran concurrently with one another and panned four Fiscal Years: 2020-21 , 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024. It is very rare that we have the opportunity to use Federal funds to address building or renovation projects for our school districts , so we have had no experience with the David Bacon prevailing wage requirement prior to these Federal fund , and therefore, this was not something on our radar at the time. Most of the Federal funding grants that we are used to (ESEA and Special Education) are spent on wages and purchases of materials and equipment, not projects of the scope that we were able to provide using ESSER Grant Funds. For any future projects requiring contractors, we will ensure that MSAD 27 provides the Davis Bacon requirement for prevailing wage rates including the information with the Request for Proposals or Bids (if applicable) and also with the contracts for the service once awarded. We will then ensure that the prevailing wage rates app licable to the contractor were paid to the workers (if applicable) prior to us paying the invoice to the contractor. Anticipated Compl etion Date: August 31 , 2024 to develop the policy and procedure for future Request for Propo als/ Bids that require the Davis Bacon prevailing wage rates.