2022-001 The District did not have adequate internal controls for ensuring compliance with allowable activities and costs, equipment, and restricted purpose requirements. Assistance Listing Number and Title: 32.009, COVID-19 ? Emergency Connectivity Fund Program Federal Grantor Name: Federal Communications Commission Federal Award/Contract Number: COVID-19 ECF222117686 COVID-19 ECF222117706 COVID-19 ECF222117654 COVID-19 ECF202203145 COVID-19 ECF202200586 COVID-19 ECF202110403 COVID-19 ECF202109091 Pass-through Entity Name: N/A Pass-through Award/Contract Number: N/A Known Questioned Cost Amount: $1,684,309 Background The Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) Program provides funding to meet the needs of students and school staff who would otherwise lack access to connected devices and broadband connections sufficient to engage in remote learning. This is referred to as ?unmet need.? In fiscal year 2022, the District spent $1,684,309 in ECF Program funds to purchase laptops, Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, routers, and broadband services for students and school staff. Federal regulations require recipients to establish and maintain internal controls that ensure compliance with program requirements. These controls include understanding grant requirements and monitoring the effectiveness of established controls. Allowable activities and costs ECF Program recipients must only seek reimbursement for the eligible devices and services provided to students and staff with unmet need. Recipients are prohibited from seeking and receiving reimbursement for eligible equipment and services purchased for use solely at the school or held for future use (i.e., warehousing). Equipment The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires ECF Program recipients to maintain inventories of the devices and services they have purchased with program funds. The FCC also requires the inventories to include specific elements, such as the type of equipment or service provided, equipment make/model and serial number, name of the students or employees provided the equipment or service, dates they used the equipment or service, and more. Restricted purpose ? unmet need When submitting applications to the FCC, schools only had to provide an estimate of their students? and staff?s unmet need. However, when requesting reimbursement, the District could only request program funds for eligible equipment and services provided to students and school staff with actual unmet need. Description of Condition Allowable activities and costs/restricted purpose ? unmet need The District estimated unmet need for eligible equipment and services when it applied for ECF Program funds. However, our audit found the District?s internal controls were ineffective for ensuring it requested reimbursement only for eligible equipment and services provided to students and school staff with a documented unmet need. Specifically, the District purchased laptops, Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, routers, and broadband services, based on its estimate of unmet need, and it requested reimbursement for these purchases totaling $1,684,309. However, the District did not maintain documentation showing it provided each laptop, Wi-Fi hotspot, modem, router, and broadband service paid with program funds to a student or employee with unmet need. Equipment Although the District maintains asset inventories, our audit found its internal controls were ineffective for ensuring it included all required elements in the inventories. Specifically, for 10.3 percent of the equipment we tested that was funded by the ECF Program, the District did not include names of the students or employees provided or responsible for the equipment and services and the dates they used them. We consider these deficiencies in internal controls to be material weaknesses that led to material noncompliance. This issue was not reported as a finding in the prior audit. Cause of Condition Allowable activities and costs/restricted purpose ? unmet need Although employees in the District?s Finance Department knew that another department received an ECF Program award, they said they did not know about all its regulations. They also did not fully understand the requirement to request reimbursement only for actual unmet need, and thought the estimate of unmet need provided during the application process was sufficient to comply with this requirement. In addition, District employees who were authorized to order eligible equipment and services did not review and sign the funding application or the reimbursement requests. They also did not know about the required certifications stating that the District must only seek reimbursement for eligible equipment and/or services provided to students or employees with unmet need. The District also experienced turnover in the position responsible for managing this program. Equipment District employees maintained equipment inventories and said they knew about the program?s asset and service inventory requirements. However, they overlooked updating some equipment records to include the names of the students or employees provided or responsible for the equipment and dates of service. Effect of Condition and Questioned Costs Allowable activities and costs/restricted purpose ? unmet need Because the District did not have documentation supporting whether it provided eligible equipment and services to students and school staff with actual unmet need, it cannot demonstrate compliance with the program?s requirements. Given the nature of the program and circumstances, it is likely that at least some of the equipment and services the District charged to the award addressed unmet needs. However, the lack of a documented assessment of students? and staff?s actual unmet need means that all costs are unsupported. Since we do not have a reasonable basis for estimating how much of the District?s expenditures are allowable, we are questioning all unsupported costs. Federal regulations require the State Auditor?s Office to report known questioned costs that are greater than $25,000 for each type of compliance requirement. We question costs when we find the District does not have adequate documentation to support expenditures. Equipment Using a statistical sample, we found three of the 29 equipment items tested did not include the name of the student or staff responsible for the equipment and the dates of service. Without maintaining proper asset and service inventory records, as the FCC requires, the District cannot demonstrate compliance with this requirement. Because of the missing information, the District cannot effectively track the use of federally funded equipment and services. Recommendation We recommend the District work with the granting agency to determine audit resolution. We further recommend the District establish and follow internal controls to ensure staff fully understand the requirements for ECF awards. Specifically, the District should: ? Request reimbursement only for eligible equipment and services provided to students and staff with unmet need, and maintain documentation demonstrating compliance ? Maintain inventories that include all required elements to track the use of equipment and services paid with ECF Program funds District?s Response The District does not concur with the audit finding or the questioned costs. When the District applied for the ECF funding in 2020, we were in compliance with the requirements that were set forth by the FCC. It is only when the requirements were altered in 2021 and written in a more unclear manner that the District potentially did not comply with FCC guidelines. The District does agree that there is always room for improvement with internal controls and processes, however this was during the pandemic and we believe the appropriate level of reporting would be a management letter because all costs were allowable and devices were only provided to those with unmet need. The audit?s condition states that our internal controls were ineffective for ensuring we requested reimbursement only for students and staff with a documented unmet need and that some inventory elements for 10% of the equipment purchased with ECF funds were missing. Based on the guidance below, we have spent all funds for allowable costs, that those costs were reasonable and necessary and for students with unmet needs. Districts were able to determine whether students had unmet needs, and for our district this meant addressing instances where students may share a home device with others, the device was too old or slow to function properly, student owned devices did not have the appropriate security in place to protect students during remote learning, and operationally the district could not access personally owned devices to provide the thousands of technical, problem solve technical questions, keep students safe and issues students faced during remote learning. Based on these experiences, unmet need was defined broadly, but within allowed parameters and inventory records were kept. Devices for remote learning could also be used at school. During the pandemic in Washington State we experienced times when classrooms, schools and or districts were closed by health department and state regulations because of outbreaks. Districts had to be prepared to support remote learning each day with constantly changing guidance on who was allowed to be in person. The following guidance from the Federal Communications Commission, titled ?Emergency Connectivity Fund Common Misconceptions?, ?Misconception #2: If schools have returned to in-class instruction for the upcoming school year, they are not eligible to participate. Answer: This is false. Equipment and services provided to students or school staff who would otherwise lack sufficient access to connected devices, and/or broadband internet access connection while off campus are eligible for Emergency Connectivity Fund Support.? From the Federal Communications Commission Order FCC-CIRC21-93-043021, question 77: ?We think schools are in the best position to determine whether their students and staff have devices and broadband services sufficient to meet their remote learning needs, and we recognize that they are making such decisions in the midst of a pandemic. We, therefore, will not impose any specific metrics or process requirements on those determinations.? And from question 53: ??we are sensitive to the need to provide some flexibility during this uncertain time. If those connected devices were purchased for the purpose of providing students?with devices for off- campus use consistent with the rules we adopt today, we will not prohibit such oncampus use.? SAO did not apply any reasonable measure to reduce questioned costs but did state they know some of the costs are reasonable, while still choosing to question all costs. A unmet needs survey was shown to the auditor?s, originally applied to reduce questioned cost, and then it was considered unsatisfactory. Receiving a 100% response rate for any survey to reduce questioned costs is not reasonable to expect in any setting, let alone among a student population of 3,200 students during a pandemic. That is clearly out of alignment with the FCC guidance. Auditor?s Remarks The State Auditor?s Office is sympathetic to the significant challenges the District faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and deeply respects its commitment to student learning despite these challenges. SAO knows that in many cases, governments across Washington received significant pandemic-era federal funds without also receiving clear guidance on how to use them. Then, and now, SAO continues to advocate for clear, timely guidance from federal agencies to make sure Washington governments are not put in a difficult position at audit time. However, when auditing federal programs of any kind, governments must provide documentation to substantiate that they met the grant requirements. As is our practice and audit standards require, we will review the status of this finding during our next audit. We value our partnership with the District in striving for transparency in public service. Applicable Laws and Regulations Title 2 U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (Uniform Guidance), section 516, Audit findings, establishes reporting requirements for audit findings. Title 2 CFR Part 200, Uniform Guidance, section 303 Internal controls, describes the requirements for auditees to maintain internal controls over federal programs and comply with federal program requirements. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants defines significant deficiencies and material weaknesses in its Codification of Statements on Auditing Standards, section 935, Compliance Audits, paragraph 11. Title 47 CFR Part 54, Universal Service, Subpart Q, Emergency Connectivity Fund, describes the ECF Program requirements.