Finding Text
2022-002 Reporting Timely Submission Reporting ? 97.036 Disaster Grants ? Public Assistance (Presidentially Declared Disasters), Grant # FEMA-LA-DR 4458; Grant # FEMA-LA-DR 1786; Grant # FEMA-LA-DR 4611; Grant # FEMA LA-DR 4080: Questioned Costs: For the purposes of this finding, there were no questioned costs. Criteria: Quarterly reports should be submitted to the Governor?s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) through the Louisiana Public Assistance online system for each open disaster grant no later than 30 days after the end of each calendar quarter. Condition: Six out of sixteen quarterly reports required to be submitted in 2022 was submitted 31-192 days late. These quarterly reports are completed and submitted by contracted consulting firms engaged by the Parish for grant management functions. Universe/Population: A total population of sixteen quarterly reports were required to be filed during the fiscal year (4 quarterly reports for 4 disasters). All sixteen reports were reviewed during audit procedures to determine if they were timely filed, and it was determined that six of these reports were not in compliance with the timely reporting requirements. Cause: The Parish did not have adequate processes and controls in place to ensure that the consulting firms are preparing and submitting the required quarterly reports to GOHSEP. Effect: The lack of controls related to ensuring that these quarterly reports are completed and submitted timely places the Parish in noncompliance with the reporting requirements of the Public Assistance ? Disaster Grants program, which could lead to the Parish being unable to receive additional funding under the program. Recommendation: We recommend that the Parish implement controls related to ensuring that the contracted consulting firms are completing and submitting quarterly reports on a timely basis. View of Responsible Official: Management concurs with this finding that quarterly reporting was done late, mainly due to staff turnover. Of note, 2 of the disasters had occurred in 2008 and 2019 and the reports had zero activity to report as they are in holding phase waiting for the Federal government to close out the programs. The Parish had become aware of these delinquent filings prior to this audit and had addressed the situation. Going forward, the Parish will ensure that all reports are filed in a timely manner.