Finding Text
Federal Program Title(s):
4. ALN 20.600 – State and Community Highway Safety
5. ALN 20.608 – Minimum Penalties for Repeat Offenders for Driving While Intoxicated
6. ALN 20.616 – National Priority Safety Program
Federal Agencies: Department of Transportation
Pass-Through Agencies: New Mexico Department of Transportation
Pass-through Agency Award Numbers and Award Period:
• CO6275 – ALN 20.600 (10/1/2020-9/30/2024)
• CO6101 – ALN 20.600 (10/1/2020-10/1/2026)
• CP6032/CO6349 – ALN 20.600 & 20.616 (10/1/2021-9/30/2025)
• CO6278 – ALN 20.600 (11/1/2020-10/31/2024)
Type of Finding:
• Significant Deficiency in Internal Control over Compliance
Criteria or specific requirement: According to §200.303 Internal controls of 2 CFR Part 200, the
nonfederal entity must establish and maintain effective internal control over the Federal award that
provides reasonable assurance that the non-Federal entity is managing the Federal award in
compliance with Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Federal award.
Condition: During our testing, we noted that Safer's internal controls were not sufficient or were not
operating as designed in order to document approval of allowable costs principles related to payroll
disbursements. During our testwork over allowable costs over payroll, we identified 22 of the 60 tested
disbursements that had errors in the allocation to grant expense. This is where the amount allocated
did not agree to time and effort documentation, error in the amount allocated, or general clerical errors
in the amount charged to the grant. As such, the expenses were incorrectly stated.
Known (Projected) Questioned Costs:
• $591 ($3,962) CO6383 – ALN 20.600 (10/1/2022-9/30/2024)
• $2,339 ($28,127) CO6349 – ALN 20.600 & 20.616 (10/1/2021-9/30/2025)
• None - CO6275 – ALN 20.600 (10/1/2020-9/30/2024)
• None - CO6278 – ALN 20.600 (11/1/2020-10/31/2024)Prior year finding: Repeated – previously 2022-02.
Context: The breakdown in internal controls over payroll allocations created errors in amounts posted
to the general ledger through allocations. Further, these amounts were the billed in error.
Effect: The Organization may overbill or underbill respective grants based on work performed and time
and effort documented.
Cause: Long-time institutional knowledge was lost when a prior CFO left the Organization in 2021.
Between 2022 and 2024, Safer welcomed two individuals to the CFO position; however, neither
were able to fulfill the Organization’s requirements for the position.
Recommendation: CLA recommends management continue to assess the current procedures for
payroll allocations to ensure that expenditures are not claimed in error.
Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Actions: There is no disagreement with the
audit finding. Safer management became aware of the error early in the subsequent calendar and
recalculated 100% of the payroll for the year under audit. They noted that the actual error (in reviewing
and recalculating the full payroll for the year) is $2,100 for CO6349 – ALN 20.600 & 20.616 (10/1/2021-
9/30/2025) and ($2,157) (underbilled) for CO6383 – ALN 20.600 (10/1/2022-9/30/2024). The
Organization has updated their processes and adopted new control procedures to ensure accuracy
going forward, including additional segregation of duties, monitoring, and review.
Action Planned/Taken in Response to Finding:
• The individual directly responsible for the errors is no longer with the Organization and the
duties related to payroll have been assigned to someone more familiar with the responsibility
that the role entails. The Organization has retained the services of a skilled accounting team to
conduct a thorough review and assessment of all payroll related policies and procedures. As a
result, processes have been updated and duties have been segregated related to this process.
The Organization has implemented new procedures to verify and confirm payroll allocations,
added in additional layers of review, and reinforced accountability to ensure accurate reporting
and allocation moving forward.
Name(s) of the Contact Person(s) Responsible for Corrective Action:
• Lisa Kelloff, CEO
Planned Completion Date for Corrective Action Plan: Safer has currently implemented the above
noted responses to the finding during 2024.