LEATHER & HIDE COUNCIL OF AMERICA

Finding 2023-002: Procurement Federal Agency: United States Department of Agriculture Federal Program: Foreign Market Development Cooperator Program (FMD) Assistance Listing Number: 10.600 Pass-through Entity, if Applicable: None Award Identification Number and Year: F23GXCHSHO, F23GXCHDES, F23GXWWDES, F23GXSTNDS, F22GXEVALU Criteria or Specific Requirement: In accordance with the Organization's policy and 2 CFR 200.320 "Procurement Methods", price or rate quotations must be obtained from an adequate number of qualified sources for purchases over the applicable threshold. The Organization's guidelines include requirements to conduct an appropriate form of competition every three years on all multi-year contracts that are governed by the contracting guidelines. Also per the policy, contracts for market representation are not required to be re-competed after the initial reward. Instead, the performance of market representation must be evaluated and documented by the Organization annually to ensure that the terms of the contract are being met in a satisfactory manner. Condition: We noted opportunities to strengthen procurement documentation. In one instance, the selection analysis was not dated or formally approved and did not clearly identify the contract to which it related. In another instance, while documentation indicated that a request for proposal (RFP) was issued, no additional evaluation documentation or award conclusion was retained. Additionally, we noted an instance in which a market representative, for which re-competition is not required after the initial award, engaged under the USDA Market Access Program (MAP) was utilized to provide logistics support services, with costs charged to the Foreign Market Development (FMD) program.Based on discussions with management, logistics coordination is included within the scope of the China market representative’s original MAP contract. As such, these services were considered ancillary to the representative’s role and exempt from separate procurement requirements. However, contemporaneous documentation did not clearly demonstrate the formal rationale supporting the use of a noncompetitive procurement method under the FMD program. Strengthening documentation in this area would improve transparency and support compliance with applicable Federal requirements. Cause: Controls over procurement documentation and periodic compliance review were not sufficiently formalized to ensure consistent alignment with Uniform Guidance requirements. Effect: There is a risk that the Organization will not perform proper evaluation of each element of cost to determine reasonableness. Questioned Costs: None noted. Context: Our audit procedures consisted of statistical sampling as well as substantive testwork over various samples of expenditures, and were deemed to be representative of the population for the fiscal year under audit. Identification as a Repeat Finding, if Applicable: This is not a repeat finding. Recommendation: We recommend the Organization strengthen its procurement documentation and compliance procedures to ensure alignment with 2 CFR Part 200, as well as other applicable program guidelines. Specifically, the Organization should:  Ensure all selection analyses are dated, formally approved, and clearly reference the applicable contract.  Retain complete procurement files, including RFP documentation, evaluation criteria, scoring or comparative analyses, and documented award determinations.  Implement a standardized procurement checklist to promote consistent documentation of the procurement rationale, selection process, and price reasonableness.  For services provided by market representatives that are outside the original scope or are separately identifiable, perform appropriate competitive procurement procedures or clearly document the justification for a noncompetitive approach. Strengthening these procedures would enhance transparency, improve audit defensibility, and reduce the risk of questioned costs.

Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Actions: LHCA acknowledges that in two instances procurement documentation was administratively incomplete. In both cases the underlying competitive process was sound, vendors were evaluated, the appropriate vendor was selected, and the executed contracts reflect those outcomes. No questioned costs were identified. In the first instance, a completed evaluation matrix existed with vendor scoring but did not include a formal notation confirming the award conclusion. LHCA operates in a fully electronic environment where wet signatures are not standard practice. Going forward, documentation systems are in place so that explicit award conclusion notation will be included in the vendor file to make the selection decision self-evident to any reviewer without requiring supplemental explanation.In the second instance, complete procurement documentation existed at the time of the audit but was not delivered to auditors in a timely manner due to staff turnover. This was a document retrieval issue, not a documentation gap. LHCA has addressed this by centralizing all procurement documentation in a shared Google Drive repository that is immediately accessible regardless of staff changes, and by designating a dedicated audit liaison responsible for maintaining and producing all procurement files on request. Going forward, LHCA will incorporate a conflict-of-interest representation clause into all contractor agreements, including the Meat Institute management agreement, effective with the next contract cycle. Annual execution of each contract will serve as the annual conflict of interest certification required under 2 CFR §200.318(c) and LHCA's contracting guidelines, eliminating the need for a separate certification process outside of Executive Board officers involved in procurement. Regarding the market representative relationships. LHCA's market representative relationships were competitively awarded at inception, and are maintained through annual performance evaluation consistent with MAP §1485.29(d)(5), which explicitly replaces periodic re-competition with annual performance evaluation for the life of the relationship. Where a market representative engaged under MAP takes on additional related work funded under other programs such as FMD, the regulatory framework supports an approach other than a new competitive RFP. MAP §1485.29(d)(5) establishes that market representative relationships are not subject to periodic re-competition by virtue of their specialized and relational nature. FMD §1484.35 requires documented price reasonableness but does not prescribe the specific mechanism. 2 CFR §200.320, which applies to both programs by incorporation, recognizes that noncompetitive procurement is appropriate where only one source is reasonably available. Taken together, these provisions support the conclusion that where an existing market representative is the only practicable source for incremental related work — by virtue of their established relationships, market knowledge, commodity expertise, and program continuity — a formal proposal-based review process satisfies the regulatory intent without requiring a competitive process that would produce no meaningful competition. LHCA therefore requires the market representative to submit a formal written proposal for any expanded scope, with deliverables, timelines, and line-item costs sufficient to support a documented price reasonableness analysis. A contract amendment is executed only upon a determination that the proposed scope and cost represent reasonable value. This satisfies the regulatory intent of MAP §1485.29(d)(5), FMD §1484.35, and 2 CFR §200.320 without requiring a competitive process contrary to program interests. LHCA will incorporate this procedure explicitly into its contracting guidelines to ensure consistent application and clear documentation of the policy basis going forward.

Finding 2020-001: Suspension and Debarment Information on the Federal Programs: All Criteria or Specific Requirement: Recipients of Federal funding must adhere to specific requirements on screening all potential vendors, suppliers, contractors, subrecipients, employees, fellows, etc. to ensure the Organization is not conducting business with excluded parties (as defined by the United States Government). This screening process must also be documented in writing. Condition: Although it is our understanding that the Organization screened contractors in following with their policy, we were unable to verify that this screening was performed during the year under audit, because documentation was not maintained until subsequent to completion of the 2019 audit. Cause: Although the Organization was screening contractors in accordance with policy, the screening was not documented during the year under audit, so screenings related to 2020 were documented after the date of purchase. Effect: Failure to screen potential vendors, suppliers, contractors, subrecipients, employees, fellows, etc. against the suspended and debarred list increases the possibility that federal funds may inadvertently be provided to parties deemed to be excluded by the United States Government. Questioned Costs: Undetermined Context: Our audit procedures consisted of statistical sampling as well as substantive testwork over various samples of expenditures, and were deemed to be representative of the population for the fiscal year under audit. We determined that the issue was systemic in nature. Identification as a Repeat Finding, if Applicable: This is a repeat finding (2019-001) Recommendation: We recommend that the screening of potential vendors and suppliers be completed (and documented) prior to entering into the transactions or making payments, and should be periodically revisited (and documentation updated) for ongoing relationships with parties.

Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Actions: Effective March 9, 2021, all searches of contractors are documented with a screen shot of the website search results. Effective January 1, 2022, this action occurs each time a contract is entered into or renewed

2019-001