Finding Text
Finding No: 2022-002 Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistance Listing Number: 93.697 Program: COVID- 19 Testing and Mitigation for Rural Health Clinics Compliance Requirement: Activities allowed or unallowed/allowable costs Award Year: January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2022 (a) Criteria or Requirement 2 CFR 200.303 requires non-federal entities receiving federal awards to establish and maintain internal controls designed to reasonably ensure compliance with federal laws, regulations, and program compliance requirements. (b) Condition Found The System did not have adequate controls related to reporting of laboratory expenditures specific to the number of COVID test kits. This reporting was utilized to determine the costs allowed for reimbursement under the program, resulting in 6 daily counts out of 28 selected samples containing errors, with a net overstatement of expenses of $2,000. (c) Cause The System?s review process in place over the recording of these costs did not operate effectively to prevent unallowable charges and inaccurate amounts from being submitted for reimbursement by the federal agency. (d) Effect Federal funds were expended for unallowable purposes or for inaccurate amounts and evidence of the effective operation of management review controls was not maintained in accordance with Federal requirements. (e) Questioned Cost None reportable (f) Statistical Sample Not applicable (g) Repeat Finding in the Prior Year Not a repeat finding (h) Recommendation We recommend that the System strengthen controls over the management review process to prevent unallowable costs and inaccurate amounts from being charged to Federal programs. (i) View of Responsible Officials The test kit counts for COVID-19 Testing and Mitigation for Rural Health Clinics (CFDA No. 93.697) reporting were generated through daily data analysis reports of Covid positive and negative resulted tests. The number of resulted tests were manually entered into a spreadsheet by lab personnel at North Mississippi Medical Clinics. The spreadsheet was used to assign the costs of the kits to each clinic where the resulted test occurred. Lab personnel did not consistently record accurate counts and did not perform a daily or monthly reconciliation to the generated data reports.