EARLY LEARNING COALITION OF FLORIDA’S GATEWAY, INC.

2019-001 Software Conversion ? estimated costs vs. actual Criteria or specific requirement: The Early Learning Coalition of Florida?s Gateways, Inc., uses software provided by the Florida Department of Education, Office of Early Learning (OEL) which is a state-wide system required for thirty coalitions to input parent, provider, program operations, and fiscal data, as mandated by Florida?s Office of Early Learning/Department of Education. The Coalition depends upon the software to track attendance, verify parent income, compute parent fees, and calculate provider rates/reimbursements. During the year ending June 30, 2019, OEL upgraded the software used. The upgrade was not fully functional during the year ended June 30, 2019 (OEL continues to work toward resolution). Condition: As indicated above, the software upgrade was not completed. Records were not available to generate accurate amounts. Therefore, payments to School Readiness providers were estimated. Cause: Failure to complete software upgrade in a timely manner ? isolated to 2018-19 fiscal year. Effect or potential effect: The estimated payments resulted in over and under payments to school readiness providers. The net overpayment to the providers, as computed post year end ? and subject to additional scrutiny, was determined to be $352,377 (underpaid $462,907 and overpaid $110,530). The amounts were recorded in the financial statements. However, due to the risk of additional material adjustments, a disclaimer of opinion on the financial statements was issued. Context: Work performed that resulted in the finding: 1. Scheduled all deposits (draws from OEL) and agreed to requests for estimated draws 2. Scheduled all provider payments (ETFs) from bank statements and agreed to payments for school readiness and VPK providers 3. Tested 190 individual students from corrected provider billings 4. Tested corrected post year-end attendance records from seven providers (in excess of 250 students). However, even with extensive testing performed, the risk of additional provider adjustments could potentially exceed materiality based on the net corrections (see above) made post year-end. Recommendation: OEL continues to work towards correcting all ongoing software issues. In addition, the Coalition has worked diligently to correct provider payments via the manual review of provider and child records. However, once the software upgrade is complete, I recommend reconciling the corrected manual records/amounts to the software generated records/amounts.

2019-002 Supporting Documentation for Childcare Payments Criteria or specific requirement: Payments to providers for child care costs should be based upon eligible children supported by adequate documentation. Parent fees should be computed in accordance with applicable income and corresponding sliding fee scale established accordingly. Condition: Per the test of child records, I noted sixty-one instances of the 190 tested in which parent fees could not be determined correct or the child?s age was not verifiable by birth certificate. Cause: The ongoing OEL software upgrade did not provide access to all children?s records. This issue is isolated to the 2018-19 fiscal year. Effect or potential effect: Erroneous payments are possible without documentation to support the associated provider payment on a per child basis. Given the magnitude of unsupported children in the test ? 32%, the possibility of a material errors exists. Context: Work performed that resulted in the finding: tested 190 school readiness students from sixteen providers. The provider payments tested totaled $186,436. An error rate of 32% expressed in dollars for those providers tested is approximately $60,000. Recommendation: OEL continues to correct the ongoing software issues. Once the update is completed, I recommend that the Coalition select children and determine that all eligibility support is accessible ? even for the prior fiscal year.