Finding Text
CONDITION: For the District’s Title I grants, the District did not properly obtain semi-annual certifications or personnel activity reports supporting the time and effort of 15 employees that worked on this federal program. The District also charged one employee to the program that was not included in the Title I plans and overcharged one employee that should have only been partially funded with Title I. CRITERIA: The District was not fully complying with the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) and the South Carolina State Department of Education’s (“SDE”) requirements for proper support for federal salaries and wages for this program. Title I funds should generally only be claimed for employees whose salaries and benefits are included in the Title I plans. CONTEXT, CAUSE, AND EFFECT: Where employees are expected to work solely on a single federal award or cost objective, charges for their salaries and wages will be supported by periodic certifications. These certifications are to be prepared at least semi-annually and will be signed by the employee or the supervisory official having first-hand knowledge of the work performed by the employee. Where employees work on multiple activities or cost objectives, a distribution of their salaries or wages will be supported by personnel activity reports. The District had reasonable supporting documentation for most of the payroll charged to this program, but inadvertently did not complete the time and effort documents as required by the SDE. The District budgeted positions and activities in the Title I program but the actual employees charged to the program were not always communicated to the program director therefore the time and effort documents were not always properly completed.
The District’s auditors tested approximately $353,000 in key items related to payroll in the Title I program and noted two exceptions for approximately $87,000 in questioned costs (related to two employees). The District’s auditors tested a random sample of other payroll Title I expenditures and noted two exceptions of approximately $23,000 in questioned costs (related to one of the same employees in our key item testing). The amount of known random questioned costs extrapolated to the remaining random population resulted in potential random questioned costs of approximately $223,000. The key items and random items likely questioned costs related to allowable costs was approximately $310,000 for the Title I program for fiscal year 2024. RECOMMENDATION: The District is implementing procedures to ensure compliance with OMB and SDE requirements and to ensure only employees in the Title I plan are appropriately charged to the program. RESPONSE: The District agrees with this finding and will adhere to the corrective action plan beginning on page 120 in this audit report.