Finding Text
Federal Agency: Department of Education
Federal Program: Special Education Cluster
Pass-Through Agency: Massachusetts State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Pass-Through Number(s): Various – See Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards
Assistance Listing Numbers: 84.027, 84.173
Type of Finding:
• Material Weakness in Internal Control over Compliance
• Material Noncompliance (Qualified Opinion)
Compliance Requirement: Allowable Costs/Cost Principles
Criteria or specific requirement: 2 CFR, Part 200, 200.303 requires an auditee to establish and maintain effective internal controls over federal awards to ensure compliance with federal statutes, regulations and terms and conditions of the federal award. 2 CFR Part 200.403 (g) states that costs must be adequately documented to be allowable under federal awards.
Condition: We identified that the District’s internal controls were not designed to ensure proper documentation of the time charged to the grant is maintained.
Questioned Costs: $85,252. These identified costs along with the projection of additionally likely questioned costs over the unsampled population resulted in likely questioned costs exceeding program materiality.
Context: 20 of the 40 transactions tested, no documentation of time and effort was provided. In addition, 15 of 40 transactions, the documentation of time and effort lacked appropriate approval.
Cause: Procedures were not in place to ensure the proper documentation of the time and effort for related payroll charged to the was grant were maintained.
Effect: The salaries charged are subject to disallowance and are considered questioned costs.
Recommendation: We recommend management review their policies and procedures in place to ensure salaries charged to the grants are appropriate and necessary supporting documentation of time and effort is maintained.
Views of responsible officials: There is no disagreement with the audit finding.