Finding Text
Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Agriculture
Federal Program Name: The Emergency Food Assistance Program (Food Commodities)
Assistance Listing Number: 10.569
Pass-through Agency: Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
Pass-through Number: 5-07-39-217
Award Period: July 1, 2021 – June 30, 2022
Type of Finding:
Material Weakness in Internal Control over Compliance
Other Matters
Criteria: 3 CFR Part 200 Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards requires compliance with the provisions of eligibility. The Organization should have procedures and controls in place to ensure distributing agencies of The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) are eligible to receive commodities for distribution to their participants.
Condition: During our testing, we identified there was no monitoring performed for 9 out of the 21 agencies tested which distributed TEFAP commodities during fiscal year 2022.
Questioned Costs: None.
Context: The Organization did not have proper internal controls in place to monitor the food distributed in a timely manner.
Cause: Due to Covid-19 changes in the ability to perform on-site monitoring, the Organization did not collect data from participating agencies on a timely basis during the year to establish eligibility of the recipients of food distributed.
Effect: The Organization collected data and monitored participating agencies after year-end and without the ability to modify food distributions if any ineligible participants were discovered during the program year. No ineligible distributions were determined based on subsequent monitoring activities.
Repeat Finding: Yes
Recommendation: The Organization should prioritize the timely monitoring of participating agencies to allow for changes in food distributions if any ineligible participants are discovered.
View of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Action: Please refer to Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley, Inc. and subsidiaries’ Corrective Action Plan.