Performance Audit Report on Selected Awards to Washington State Arts Commission

We conducted a performance audit of two National Endowment for the Arts (Arts Endowment) Partnership awards issued to the Washington State Arts Commission (ArtsWA). Based on our review, we determined ArtsWA generally met the financial and compliance requirements in the award documents. However, we identified some areas requiring improvement. For instance, we found that ArtsWA: included $31,000 in unallowable cost share on its Federal Financial Reports (FFRs); included $19,458 in unallowable entertainment costs on its FFRs; did not notify all subrecipients of Federal subaward management requirements; and did not verify potential vendors were eligible to receive Federal funds. We believe the evidence obtained during the audit provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We are questioning $50,458 ($31,000 plus $19,458) in unallowable costs. We also made six recommendations to address the audit findings -- four to ArtsWA and two to the Arts Endowment.