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Performance Audit of AmeriCorps Grants Awarded to Serve DC

Date Issued
Report Number
OIG-AR-24-06
Report Type
Audit
Description
The performance audit of AmeriCorps grants awarded to Serve DC, the Mayor’s Office on Volunteerism and Partnership, and three of its 16 subgrantees (including the Jumpstart for Young Children, Center for Inspired Teaching, and Inspired Teaching Demonstration Public Charter School) identified approximately $1.7 million of questioned Federal and match costs covering three calendar years from 2017 through 2019. The Inspired Teaching Demonstration Public Charter School became the Center for Inspired Teaching and had no claimed costs. In particular, the audit identified concerns regarding Serve DC and subgrantee’s inadequate documentation for personnel expenses, inadequate support for Serve DC’s in-kind match, Serve DC’s inadequate accounting records, subgrantee’s inadequate criminal history checks, and Serve DC and subgrantees’ insufficient internal controls that resulted in under or excess reporting of costs. Serve DC and Jumpstart for Young Children responded separately to address the report findings and recommendations; the Center for Inspired Teaching did not respond to the draft report. Serve DC did not concur with eight of the 16 recommendations, involving the questioning or disallowing of costs. Jumpstart also did not concur with its only recommendation which was related to the disallowance of match costs. AmeriCorps concurred with all our recommendations and promised to work with Serve DC to strengthen its internal controls surrounding the audit findings and will ensure Serve DC’s financial reporting aligns with financial management system standards.
Joint Report
No
Agency Wide
Yes
Questioned Costs
$1766876
Funds for Better Use
$0
View report on Oversight.gov

Open Recommendations

Body

Require Serve DC to implement, or verify that Serve DC implemented, internal controls ensuring timecards are signed by employees and supervisors and retained to support the payroll costs charged and claimed on the AmeriCorps grants.

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Recover the total payroll questioned costs of $433,625 in Federal costs and disallow $308,090 in match costs related to missing timecards, missing supervisory signatures, and missing employee signatures related to CAH grants (16CAHDC001 and 19CAHDC001), TTA grant (16TAHDC001), and VGF grant (17VGHDC001). Also disallow $43,349 in match costs for the ACH grant (18ACHDC001) claimed by JumpStart.

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Require, or verify that Serve DC has since implemented, policies and procedures that appropriately cite or reference CFR Cost Principles to claim allowable, reasonable, and allocable costs.

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Require, or verify that Serve DC has implemented, controls to obtain and maintain supporting documentation for all staff costs.

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Require Serve DC to develop and implement policies and procedures to appropriately track in its accounting system and obtain supporting documentation for all in-kind match costs associated with AmeriCorps grants and from within the DC government and third parties.

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Disallow the $266,350 of match in-kind costs claimed on the Federal Financial Report related to the VGF grant (17VGHDC001). In addition, determine if Serve DC was able to meet the match requirement pertaining to the Federal costs claimed for the VGF grant (17VGHDC001) upon Serve DC’s submission of the final Federal Financial Report and recover those Federal costs for which match costs were not provided.

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Require that Serve DC implement policies and procedures that require documentation identifying the source and use of funds by batch and for each transaction.

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Recover $297,407 in Federal costs and disallow $131,302 in match costs due to unsupported other direct costs.

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Require Serve DC to implement controls to verify that subgrantees are performing the National Sex Offender Public Website Program (NSOPW) searches, including FBI Fingerprint, and documenting their verification of the government-issued photo IDs for all required individuals.

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Recover the total questioned Federal costs of $66,605 and disallow match costs of $3,284 for payroll and administrative costs for grant (18AFHDC001) due to no National Sex Offender Public Website Program Search.

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Recover the total questioned Federal costs of $6,159 and disallow match costs of $650 for payroll and administrative costs for grant (18AFHDC001) due to no DC Criminal Background Check.

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Recover the total questioned Federal costs of $35,496 for payroll and administrative costs for grant (18AFHDC001) due to No FBI Fingerprint Check.

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Require Serve DC to implement controls to prepare reports that support and reconcile to the amounts reported to AmeriCorps eGrants. Serve DC should also establish controls to reconcile and document costs recorded in the accounting record to the costs reported on the Federal Financial Report for each grant.

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Recover $82,345 in questioned Federal costs and disallow $83,796 in claimed match costs not supported by the accounting records.

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Require that Serve DC develop and implement a mandatory training program including a tracking system to ensure that all subgrantees’ staff have training, capability, and assistance to enter their budgets and costs into its reporting system to meet reporting requirements timely.

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Instruct Serve DC to develop and implement procedures and controls to prevent future drawdowns in excess of incurred costs.

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Recover the questioned Federal costs of $8,418 for member living allowance and support for grant (18AFHDC001).

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Verify that Serve DC implements controls to ensure that subgrantees are applying costs for member living allowance in accordance with the approved budget in their accounting records and in PERs.