Finding 8323 (2023-101)

Criteria: The SF-429 is required to be filed annually upon the end of the budget period. The annual SF-429 is required for all grantees and must indicate whether the grantee has reportable real property. Condition: The SF-429 report was not filed in fiscal year 2023. Context: The Organization had reportable items that should have been reported to the federal agency on the SF-429. Effect: The Organization runs the risk of the federal agency investigating real property. Cause: The cause is due to lack of management oversight on the requirements for the head start grant. Recommendation: We recommend that the Organization implements a process to ensure all reports are filed in a timely manner. Views of Responsible Officials: The Agency originally submitted the SF-429 report on April 5, 2023. Then on June 28, 2023, the Agency received an email from their Grants Management Specialist at Federal Head Start (Region 1) that indicated the Annual SF429 report was not certified. Initially when the Executive and Finance Director were set up for Grants Solution, they were not given the appropriate access to approve reports completed in the On-Line Data Collection module within Grants Solution. This technical issue has been resolved, which in turn will allow timely completion of all reports within the Grants Solution platform. The Agency has established a practice that the SF-429 report will be completed during the first business week of January, which in turn will ensure that they are following the reporting requirements within the Federal Head Start award.