Finding Text
Significant Deficiency
Other Noncompliance
Program: Assistance Listing: 10.553/10.555 – Child Nutrition Cluster
Repeat Finding: No
Criteria: Section 7 CFR 210.8 requires the school food authority (SFA) to establish internal controls to
ensure the accuracy of meal counts before submitting the monthly Claim for Reimbursement.
These controls include:
On-site Review: Each SFA with multiple schools must conduct at least one on-site review
each school year, prior to February 1, of the meal counting and claiming system for each
school. The review attempts to identify discrepancies in meal counts and compares daily
meal data to identify any issues. If problems are found, corrective action must be
implemented, and a follow-up review must occur within 45 days to confirm resolution. The
review ensures that the meal count system is accurate and compliant with state and federal
regulations.
Claims Review Process: Before submitting the Claim for Reimbursement, the SFA must
review the lunch count data for each school to verify the accuracy of the claims. The goal is
to ensure that only the correct number of reimbursable free, reduced price, and paid meals
served to eligible children are included in the claim.
Condition: Our procedures indicated that the District’s internal control system is inadequate for ensuring
for compliance with federal requirements for preparing claims for reimbursements in the food
service program. In performing our procedures, the District did not provide supporting
documentation for the month of August which the director stated was prepared using manual
calculations because the point-of-sale system was not operational for that month. Our
procedures also identified several input errors for several months in entering meals served for
individual schools that qualify under the Community Eligibility Program (CEP) for several
other months.
Context/
Perspective: This finding is a result of our audit procedures over internal control and compliance for one
hundred percent of claims for reimbursement in the food service program.
Cause: The District lacks the necessary internal controls to ensure that claims for reimbursement for
meals served are accurately calculated, properly documented and approved by the food service
director.
Effect: The lack of adequate internal controls over claims for reimbursement for food service may
increase the risk of misappropriation or loss of public funds. It could also result in inappropriate
charges to the federal award, potentially leading to disallowed costs being applied to the
program.
Questioned
Costs: None
Recommendation: The District should implement additional internal controls to ensure that claims for
reimbursements for the food service program are accurately calculated, properly documented,
and approved by the food service director.
Views of
Responsible
Officials: The Auditee’s Corrective Action Plan lists the District’s response to the findings.