Finding Text
US Department of Health and Human Service
Passed through the NC Dept of Health and Human Services
Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) Cluster
Finding 2024-006 FNS Eligibility Determinations
SIGNIFICANT DEFICIENCY
Eligibility
Criteria:
Condition:
Questioned Costs:
Context:
Effect:
Cause:
Recommendation:
Views of responsible
officials and planned
corrective actions:
Section III - Federal Award Findings and Questioned Costs (continued)
AL No.: 10.551 and 10.561
Per Section 200.303 of the Uniform Grant Guidance, a non-federal entity must establish and maintain
effective internal control over the Federal award that provides reasonable assurance that the nonfederal
entity is managing the Federal award in compliance with Federal statutes, regulations, and the
terms and conditions of the Federal award. The State has provided policies and procedures to ensure
that the County is meeting the federal guidance, relevant policies are:
Food and Nutrition Services Policy 305 describes the verification sources and requirements and the
FNS units primary responsibility for providing documentary evidence to support statements on
applications and recertifications and procedures required if the statements by applicant/beneficiary are
questionable.
Food and Nutrition Services Policy 300 describes the sources of income countable and not countable to
the household for determining financial eligibility.
Food and Nutrition Services Policy 310 describes the procedures related to verifying changes in
income (i.e. termination, end of contract, temporary, etc.).
There were a total of 8 errors found in our testing: 5 instances where there was an inadequate request
for information from the client or verification from electronic sources; 3 instances where income was
incorrectly caclculated or incorrect amount was entered in NCFAST. Of these 8 errors, 1 of these
could potentially be an eligibility error.
Due to the nature of the populations provided from which the samples were chosen, we are unable to
calculate questioned costs for the above mentioned potential eligibility issue.
We examined 25 of 29,653 FNS cases from a report of all active FNS beneficiaries provided by the
County's Department of Social Services. The finding is being reported with the financial statement
audit as it relates to FNS administrative cost compliance audit.
For those certifications/re-certifications there was a chance that information was not properly
documented and reconciled to NC FAST and a participant could have been approved for benefits for
which they were not eligible.
Ineffective record keeping and ineffective case review process, incomplete documentation, and
incorrect application of rules for purposes of determining eligibility.
The County should provide training of management and staff on the program's eligibility requirements,
proper case review process, and required verifications for eligibility. Also, the County should ensure
that their formal internal review process is adequately completed to identify and correct errors in case
reviews.
The County agrees with the finding. See Corrective Action Plan in the following section.