The National Service Trust holds the funds set aside to pay the education awards of national service members who successfully complete their service terms. Responsibility for the education awards that have been earned or will be earned in the near future is the largest liability on AmeriCorps’ financial statements at $315 million. AmeriCorps has been unable to produce auditable financial statements for the last seven years. This year, independent auditors issued another disclaimer of opinion, reporting five material weaknesses and one significant deficiency. All the material weaknesses are recurring, two of them since FY 2017, one since FY 2018, one since FY 2021, and one since FY 2022. Further, AmeriCorps’ financial statements and accompanying notes were not in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and Office of Management and Budget Circular A-136. In recognition of the pervasive weaknesses in internal control, AmeriCorps included in its Annual Management Report a Statement of No Assurance, acknowledging that the agency could not provide reasonable assurance as to the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, operations, including programmatic operations, and compliance with laws. This is the fourth year that AmeriCorps has issued a No Assurance statement. Remedial actions by AmeriCorps have closed one of the 41 prior year recommendations. The remaining 40 recommendations continue to be valid, four of them in modified form. The auditors also made six new recommendations, for a total of 46.AmeriCorps acknowledged the disclaimer of opinion and expressed concurrence to one material weakness and one significant deficiency, however, AmeriCorps did not concur with the remaining four material weaknesses. However, AmeriCorps did not specify which material weaknesses they were in agreement or disagreement. AmeriCorps reiterated their focus on remediating long-standing issues. The independent accounting firm RMA Associates LLC performed the audit of the AmeriCorps FY 2023 National Service Trust Fund financial statements, under contract with AmeriCorps-OIG.
Open Recommendations
| Recommendation Number | Significant Recommendation | Recommended Questioned Costs | Recommended Funds for Better Use | Additional Details | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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) | |||||
| 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 | ||
| Develop and implement standard operating procedures to ensure the applicable line items in the trust statement of bugetary resources are properly reconciled to the SF 132, Apportionment and Reapportionment Schedule, and differences are properly documented, explained, and available upon request. (New) | |||||
| 9 | No | $0 | $0 | ||
| Establish, implement, and document policies and procedures that outline 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) | |||||
| 10 | 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, Oracle. (Modified Repeat) | |||||
