Audit of NPS Centennial Challenge Project Partnerships

We completed the survey phase of our audit of NPS Centennial Challenge projects and programs. Our audit intended to determine whether NPS 1) received and verified the full non-Federal partner match for the Centennial Challenge projects and programs, 2) managed the partner matches in accordance with the partnership agreements and applicable policies and regulations, and 3) appropriately monitored the projects and programs. We gathered information about NPS financial systems and tested internal controls used to manage the CC projects within our scope, as well as considering previous Office of Inspector General audit results and a Government Accountability Office audit that essentially found the CC program worked as planned. We also looked at how the NPS verified receipt of the matching funds and how it managed and monitored the projects and the controls used to administer the program. In particular, we reviewed how NPS accounted for CC project funds by testing transactions for each reviewed project. Our survey work found that NPS verified that the parks received the required non-Federal match for the projects we reviewed and that it properly appropriated those project’s Federal funds. We also found that NPS managed and monitored the reviewed projects according to applicable guidance.