Finding 583510 (2023-006)

Passed through the NC Department of Health and Human Services Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) Cluster AL # 10.551 and 10.561 Finding: 2023-006 Inadequate Documentation in case files SIGNIFICANT DEFICENCY Eligibility Criteria: Condition: Questioned Cost: Context: Effect: Cause: Recommendation: Views of responsible officials and planned corrective i 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. There was no known affect to eligibility and there were no known questioned costs. The County agrees with the finding and is implementing actions to correct these issues, which are further discussed in the corrective action plan. There were a total of 5 errors found in our testing: 1 instance where an OVS report was not included in the case file, 1 instance where no verification of rent was included in NCFAST that is required for a deduction of income, 1 instance where earned income was incorrectly caclculated and entered in NCFAST, and 2 instances where there was no evidence that required income verifications were completed. Due to the errors noted, eligibility cannot be sufficiently substantiated and there is a risk that the County could provide funding and/or benefits to individuals who are not program eligible. The County should provide adequate 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. We examined 25 of 18,521 FNS recipients from the a report of all active FNS beneficiaries provided by Nash County's Department of Human 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.