Maryland: Use of Funds and Data Quality for Selected American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Programs

We found that Recovery Act expenditures by the Maryland State Department of Education, Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correction, and two LEAs, Baltimore City Public Schools and Prince George’s County Public Schools, were generally allowable, reasonable, and accounted for in accordance with the recipients’ plans, approved applications, and applicable laws and regulations. However, we identified more than $736,400 in unallowable, unsupported, and inadequately supported expenditures at the two LEAs. For example, we found that Prince George’s County spent more than $108,800 for unapproved travel, and Baltimore City could not adequately support personnel expenditures totaling more than $249,700. In addition, although we found that the Recovery Act data reported by the State were generally accurate, complete, and in compliance with Recovery Act reporting requirements, the jobs data reported by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correction and the two LEAs were not accurate or complete. We made several recommendations, including that the Department require the Maryland State Department of Education to revise its monitoring instruments to ensure adequate oversight of LEA compliance with requirements for Federal grant funds’ use and accounting, return to the Department funds that were used for unallowable purposes, and provide documentation to support unsupported and inadequately supported expenditures or return the amount of those expenditures to the Department.