City of Tuttle

Criteria ? The City is required to submit documentation of its allowable costs related to Coronavirus Relief Funds. Also, the City can only submit costs that are within the defined ?period of performance?. Condition ?The Coronavirus Relief Fund initial documentation submission included expenditures for a pay period prior to the allowable funding date and overtime expenses that were not allowable. Therefore, even though the documentation submitted was $67,871.42 higher than the $585,270.15 grant amount, the documentation included unallowable expenses of $126,790.43. After backing off the unallowable expenses this left a questioned cost of $58,919.01. After we reported this to management, they resubmitted a claim with sufficient allowable expenses to cover the funding. Cause and Effect ? The City prepared a claim based on the payroll paid from March 1, 2020 to August 26, 2020. When submitted the City did not realize the first pay period included work days that substantially were prior to the allowable timeframe. Also, overtime was submitted is not allowable unless specific documentation is maintained that the overtime is directly COVID related. The overtime documentation is not in place. The fact that this was a new federal assistance program made proper administration more difficult. The effect is the federal agency could have disallowed $58,919.01 of expenses submitted and the disallowed amount could have been subject to refund.Recommendation ? Controls need to be in place related to federal funding to increase reliability of submittals. In addition, when there is a new grant extra care must be made to clearly understand elements of the grant, such as allowable costs and the period of performance.

Management Agrees. There was a significant amount of confusion at all levels of government regarding the use of the allocated Coronavirus Relief Fund during the initial months of the pandemic.

Criteria ? Employee pay rates should be clearly documented.Condition ? During testing of the Coronavirus Relief Fund we noted two of the eleven employees pay rates selected had not clear documentation of pay rate. Cause and Effect ? The employees had unusual situations that caused their pay rate to not follow City?s adopted pay rate schedule. Without proper documentation the appropriate pay rate cannot be verified and creates the potential of under or over payment, and disputes with employees. Recommendation ? All employees should follow the approved pay scale, unless clear and approved documentation is in place for the pay difference.

Management agrees. A new Human Resources Manager position has been created and filled. This position will be responsible for tracking and processing of various employment matters, including employee payrates.