Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers, Inc.Non-Profit

FINDINGS AND QUESTIONED COSTS-MAJOR FEDERAL AWARD PROGRAM AUDIT Finding 2023-001: Compliance finding - Payroll U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Comm. Of MA, Department of Public Health Immunization Coop Agreements (ALN# 93.268) Condition: Payroll expenses charged to certain programs are not supported by actual time spent, but instead are allocated based upon the program budgets. Employees for those programs do not track which programs are being worked on throughout the day. Time is tracked in general and then applied to each program, based on the budget worksheet. Criteria or specific requirement: § 200.430 Compensation-personal services - budget estimates alone do not qualify as support for charges to Federal awards, but may be used for interim accounting purposes, provided that the system for establishing the estimates produces reasonable approximations of the activity actually performed. Cause: Employees are not charged with tracking their time by individual program and allocation of their wages is done by budget estimates. Effect: Payroll expenses charged to programs based upon program budgets and potentially do not accurately reflect the time spent by Organization staff on each program - misstatement of payroll expenses. Recommendation: Use of a Semi-Annual Personnel Activity Certification Form for each employee funded by a federal program. Management Response: Management has engaged a third party vendor for a new time and attendance software that will allow all hours worked and related programs to be tracked accurately. A contract has been signed and the software is actively being implemented.