Independent auditors have declined to issue an opinion on AmeriCorps’ financial statements for the seventh year. They issued a disclaimer of opinion reporting 12 material weaknesses and two significant deficiencies. Eleven of the material weaknesses are recurring, four of them since FY 2017, six since FY 2018, and one since FY 2021. AmeriCorps included in its Annual Management Report a Statement of No Assurance, acknowledging that its system of internal controls does not currently provide the necessary level of assurance in any of the three required areas, internal control over operations, reporting, and compliance with laws. This is the fourth year that AmeriCorps has issued a No Assurance statement. Despite developing corrective action plans to address prior years of findings and recommendations, the auditors verified that AmeriCorps took appropriate actions to close seven of the 81 prior year recommendations. The remaining 74 recommendations continue to be valid, five of them in modified form. The auditors also made 21 new recommendations, for a total of 95.AmeriCorps acknowledged the disclaimer of opinion and expressed concurrence to three material weaknesses and two significant deficiencies. However, AmeriCorps did not concur with nine material weaknesses. AmeriCorps did not specify which material weaknesses they were in agreement or disagreement. The Chief Financial Officer stated:While much work remains ahead, and we expected this year’s audit report to read like last year’s, we are focusing our efforts on remediating long-standing issues. AmeriCorps is making significant improvements that strengthen the agency and ensure the effective stewardship of federal resources dedicated to national and community service. Audit Report, p. 46.The independent accounting firm RMA Associates LLC performed the audit of the AmeriCorps FY 2023 consolidated financial statements, under contract with AmeriCorps-OIG.
Open Recommendations
Recommendation Number | Significant Recommendation | Recommended Questioned Costs | Recommended Funds for Better Use | Additional Details | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Design and implement control activities to address 8 of the 17 Government Accountability Office Green Book framework principles that were not sufficiently designed during its FY 2023 Entity Level Control Assessment. (New) | |||||
2 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Identify resource capabilities and needs, then recruit, train, develop, and retain financial leaders and personnel with relevant Federal financial management capabilities to achieve operations, reporting, and compliance objectives, complete and document performance evaluations in a readily accessible form, and hold individuals accountable for related control responsibilities. (Modified Repeat) | |||||
3 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Ensure its fraud risk management process includes external risk factors such as grantee and subgrantee recipients in its standard operating procedures for the agency risk profile. This process should include: (New) | |||||
3a | No | $0 | $0 | ||
A scheduled risk assessment, mitigation plan, and monitoring and reporting (e.g., relating to grantee and subgrantee recipients); | |||||
3b | No | $0 | $0 | ||
An integration of the fraud risk components for known, suspected, and alleged fraud risks; | |||||
3c | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Documentation on how the fraud risk components integrate; | |||||
3d | No | $0 | $0 | ||
How the risk scoring is conducted and applied; | |||||
3e | No | $0 | $0 | ||
The use of the results of monitoring, evaluation, audits, and investigations to improve fraud prevention, detection, and response; and | |||||
3f | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Guidance for adequate documentation on the risk determination reviews to match risk ratings or detect errors within the risk assessment. | |||||
4 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Provide internal training that addresses: | |||||
4a | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Management’s overall responsibility for establishing internal controls to manage the risk of fraud, and the related impact on the financial statements; and | |||||
4b | No | $0 | $0 | ||
The connection between potential and known fraud by the grantee and subgrantee recipients and the impact that fraud may have on the underlying financial data being provided by the recipients and ultimately used for the preparation of information reported in the financial statements. | |||||
5 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Establish policies and procedures on financial reporting in compliance with standards and guidance (i.e., U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, Office of Management and Budget Circular No. A-136, and the U.S. Standard General Ledger), which should include an end-to-end business process and flowcharts. (New) | |||||
6 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Establish policies and procedures that define its roles and responsibilities and those of its service provider to ensure that required internal policies and procedures regarding the SF 132, Apportionment and Reapportionment Schedule and SF 133, Report on Budget Execution and Budgetary Resources reconciliations are completed in timely. (New) | |||||
7 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Develop and implement standard operating procedures for a comprehensive reconciliation that includes reviews and approval and proper documentation to support the SF 132 and SF 133 reconciliation. (New) | |||||
8 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Develop and implement standard operating procedures to ensure the applicable line items in the combined Statement of Budgetary Resources are properly reconciled in a timely manner to the SF 132, Apportionment and Reapportionment Schedule and differences are properly documents, explained, and available upon request. (New) | |||||
9 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Complete a comprehensive fluctuation analysis for its consolidated financial statements that is supported and detailed enough to allow management to detect accounting errors or evaluate the reasonableness of balances. (Modified Repeat) | |||||
10 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Develop and implement standard operating procedures for a comprehensive fluctuation analysis to ensure the fluctuation analysis is properly reviewed, approved, and validated in a timely manner by appropriate AmeriCorps resources and account balances are accurate as of and through the reporting period. (Modified Repeat) | |||||
11 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Establish, implement, and document policies and procedures that define the roles and responsibilities of AmeriCorps and its service provider, such as an end-to-end business processes narrative with flowcharts related to journal entries activity. (New) | |||||
12 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Identify the root cause for the differences between the trial balance and the subsidiary ledger details for its undelivered orders. (New) | |||||
13 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Establish, document, and implement the required accounting policies and standard operating procedures, as well as establish an efficient control framework for reconciling undelivered order balances in the trial balance and the subsidiary ledgers on a routine basis. (New) | |||||
14 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Assess the training necessary to ensure established policies and procedures are followed, undelivered orders are recorded in the financial system, and amounts are properly supported. (New) | |||||
15 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Establish, document, and implement policies and procedures to monitor outstanding balances resulting from financial system configuration issues and fix the issues for future transactions to be interfaced into shared service provider’s financial management system. (New) | |||||
16 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Identify the root cause of why documentation for all financial transactions were not properly documented, maintained, and readily available for examination as required by Federal laws and regulations. (New) | |||||
17 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Develop, implement, and document the necessary standard operating procedures to establish an effective internal control environment, along with the end-to-end business processes and quality assurance process to ensure all balances recorded are supported by underlying source documentation. (New) | |||||
18 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Conduct the training necessary to ensure established policies and procedures for records management are communicated in effectively implemented. (New) | |||||
19 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Establish policies and procedures related to prior year recoveries that define the roles and responsibilities of AmeriCorps and its service provider to provide supporting documentation in a timely manner, such as an end-to-end business process and flowcharts. (New) | |||||
20 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Establish policies and procedures related to grant accruals that define the roles and responsibilities of AmeriCorps and its service provider to provide supporting documentation in a timely manner, such as an end-to-end business process and flowcharts. (New) | |||||
21 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Assess resource capabilities and needs, followed by the recruitment, training, development, and retention of personnel possessing pertinent grant management expertise, in order to attain operational, reporting, and compliance objectives. (New) | |||||
22 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Establish, implement, and document policies and procedures that define the roles and responsibilities of AmeriCorps and its service provider relating to Advances from Others, including an end-to-end business processes narrative with flowcharts. (New) | |||||
23 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Monitor outstanding balances resulting from financial system configuration issues and fix the issues for future transactions to be interfaced into the shared service provider’s financial management system. (Modified Repeat) | |||||
24 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Establish, implement, and document policies and procedures that define the roles and responsibilities of AmeriCorps and its service provider relating to Other Liabilities, including an end-to-end business processes narrative with flowcharts. (New) | |||||
25 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Establish and implement periodic training requirements to enhance knowledge of Federal capitalization standards and AmeriCorps capitalization policy for internal use software. (Modified Repeat) | |||||
26 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
Develop and implement a project management tool to track and monitor all project costs associated with the software in development including direct and indirect cost (e.g., labor). (New) |