Finding Text
Federal agency: Department of the Treasury Federal program title: Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds Assistance Listing Number: 21.027 Award Period: 03/03/21 ? 12/31/2024 Type of Finding: ? Significant Deficiency in Internal Control over Compliance Criteria or specific requirement: The Office of Management and Budget?s (OMB) Compliance Supplement requires that grant funds be used to cover costs incurred during the period beginning on March 3, 2021, and ending on December 31, 2024. Condition: The County originally included expenditures incurred prior to March 3, 2021, in their grant expenditures. Questioned costs: None. Context: The County elected to take the Standard Allowance of up to $10,000,000 in revenue loss as allowed under the Treasury?s final rule. Electing the Standard Allowance allows the County to spend up to that value on the provision of governmental services. The auditors reviewed the data export of payroll expenditures used to support costs allowable under expenditure Category 6.1, Provision of Government Services. In the total population there were nine payroll line items that required a direct replacement. After the replacement, the County still met the $10,000,000 Standard Allowance total allowable under expenditure Category 6.1, Provision of Government Services. The auditors made a statistically valid sample from the updated population to test the underlying support and found no exceptions. Cause: The County?s budget office alerted all departments of the program requirements, including the start date of March 3, 2021. When the information for eligible wages and benefits was gathered, the data included expenditures with payroll report dates of March 3, 2021. However, a portion of the wages and benefits had actually been incurred in February 2021. Review of the data did not detect that the expenditures were incurred prior to March 3, 2021. Effect: The County had to exchange claimed expenditures in order to comply with the period of performance requirement for the program. Repeat Finding: No. Recommendation: We recommend the County select a designated individual to perform a secondary review of program costs to verify that expenditures claimed meet all compliance requirements.