VICKSBURG WARREN SCHOOL DISTRICT

Payroll testing and internal controls. Programs: Elementary & Secondary School Emergency Relief II (ESSER), ALN #84.425D Elementary & Secondary School Emergency Relief III ARP (ESSER) ALN #84.425U Elementary & Secondary School Emergency Relief Homeless Children and Youth ARP (ESSER) ALN #84.425W Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies, ALN #84.010 Special Education Cluster, ALN #84.027; 84.027X; 84.173; 84.173X Compliance Requirement: Allowable Costs/Cost Principles Repeat Finding: None Criteria: The school district is charged with developing controls around payroll expenditures that will provide authorization of pay through school board approval and the existence of time and attendance records. The district should also have controls, including policies and procedures, that will ensure compliance with the record-keeping requirements of the federal wage and hour law. Condition: We noted the following items while testing payroll expenditures: 1. The District does not approve all employees on an annual basis. All employees should be approved by the school board annually, including compensation amount, and listed in minutes. Context: Internal control procedures were tested for payroll in the major federal funds and other nonmajor federal funds if included in the sample. Cause: The district did not have proper controls in place to ensure all employees were properly approved by the board. Effect: Not being able to verify an employee’s pay could result in underpaying or overpaying an employee according to their contract and board approval. Questioned Costs: None Recommendation: We recommend the district implement internal controls to ensure all employees are properly board approved, including the detail of annualized amounts for noncertified employees and salary amounts for all certified employees, and included in official board minutes. Response: Please refer to the Auditee’s Corrective Action Plan beginning on page 83.

Finding 2019-006 Material weakness. Special Education Cluster CFDA # 84.027 and 84.173 - Activities Allowed or Unallowed/Allowable Costs-Cost Principles Pass through the Mississippi Department of Education CONDITION: The district did not align its Special Education ? Grants to States budgeted expenditures in its financial accounting software to the project application budget approved by the Mississippi Department of Education. Three (3) line items out of a total of twenty-four (24) line items were not aligned with the approved application budget in the Special Education FY 19 grant; and one (1) line item out of four (4) was not aligned with the approved budget in the Preschool FY 19 grant. CRITERIA: The school district is charged with developing a system of internal controls that will ensure all expenditures made from the grant are allowable. A budgetary accounting system that aligns grant/fund expenditures with project applications approved by the oversight agency help to ensure that all expenditures are held to the amounts approved in the project application. CAUSE: The cause is not fully known. EFFECT: The effect is a control deficiency in the area of allowable and unallowable costs that would allow certain expenditures to be made in excess of the amounts allowable in the approved project application. QUESTIONED COSTS: None CONTEXT: This deficiency/noncompliance is systemic in nature to this cluster and crosses over all grants within this cluster. The alignment variances are material to the grant as a whole. RECOMMENDATION: We recommend that the district align all grant budgetary accounts with the latest approved project application budgets approved by the Mississippi Department of Education for the Special Education Cluster of Awards. VIEWS OF RESPONSIBLE OFFICIALS: See the Auditee?s Corrective Action Plan included in this report. 85