Audit Finding 2022-004 Condition and Criteria: The Student Aid Portion of the Education Stabilization Fund program focuses on distributing funds to students to assist in expenses related to the pandemic and the College must have a process to reliably distribute the funds. BMCC distributes student stipends via Bank Mobile in most cases. However, it was found during the audit that some funds did not get fully transferred to Bank Mobile or Bank Mobile returned funds for student stipends that they were not able to get to the students. In our review of the bank reconciliations and clearing accounts during fieldwork it was found that there was about $45,000 in outstanding payments to students that had not been cashed. $26,456 of these payments were voided and not reissued and the remaining items were either just errors or were reissued to the students. Effect: Grant expenditures and revenues related to the program were reduced and students that had initially had funds awarded had these amounts rescinded. Cause: Most of the funds were distributed to all eligible students as part of the College?s plan to implement the program and some students were unaware that the funds were coming and did not respond to notices in the traditional manner. The controls in place to track the outstanding items noted that there were significant funds outstanding but there was not sufficient time to follow up with each individual student. Questioned Costs: None over the questioned cost threshold after adjustments above. Auditor?s recommendation: The College should implement additional processes to review, update, and verify student enrollment status and grant awards. Corrective Action to be Taken: For traditional financial aid and grant funds, awards are noted on a student award letter after verifying enrollment levels. For aid sent to students from the Education Stabilization Fund, aid awarded was not reflected on a student award letter and the aid was initially being sent to students without being requested by the student. This practice was discontinued during 2021-22 and any aid sent to students from the Education Stabilization Fund is now only done so upon request from the student. This helps to ensure students are expecting the funds and aware the funds are coming which has helped to ensure that the checks are subsequently cashed by the student or otherwise picked up by the student. In addition, as bank reconciliations are and will be done on a more timely basis, any issues with funds not getting fully transferred, or funds returned are addressed in a more timely manner. Anticipated Completion Date: This change in process was made at the beginning of Spring Term 2022 whereby unsolicited aid money from the Education Stabilization Fund are not awarded and sent to students but are only done so upon request of the student.