Finding Text
Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Agriculture- NRCS
Program Year: 2024
Assistance Listing Number: 10.902
Compliance: Activities Allowed and Unallowed and Allowable Costs/Cost Principles
Finding Type: Significant deficiency in internal controls over compliance
Criteria: Management is responsible for maintaining adequate records for transactions charged to federal
awards that accurately reflect expenses.
Conditions and context: During compliance testing, it was noted that various payroll transactions tested
had inaccurate pay amounts or incorrect hours charged to the grant. This error accounted for
approximately $3,000 of the payroll expenditures charged to the grant (5% of the total payroll
expenditures charged to the grant and less than 1% of total expenditures charged to the grant).
Effect of Condition: As a result of this condition, Vermont Land Trust’s payroll expenditures were
overcharged to the federal grant.
Recommendation: It is recommended that a more thorough review of the expenditures charged to federal
grants be done.
View of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Action: Management acknowledges that some payroll
transactions were incorrect on a federal grant. This amounted to $3,000 out of $1.6M in expenditures on
the grant and was the result of identified errors in manual data entry and timing issues with incomplete
timecards being used for payroll allocation calculations.
Vermont Land Trust has taken the following corrective actions intended to ensure a more thorough
review of the expenditures charged to federal grants:
Redefined roles and responsibilities and created a grants management position at the
organization, adding capacity to this function.
Dedicating resources to streamline process improvements and complete documentation of
standard operating procedures in an accounting manual. These include tools that enhance
automation and reduce manual errors, strengthen internal review processes, as well as timesheet
data requirements, staff training, and documentation of procedures.
Planned Implementation Date of Corrective Action: The above corrective actions are all underway as of
March, 2025 and will be on-going.
Person Responsible for Corrective Action: President & CEO and Accounting Director