36
Additionally, 36 of the items tested were not documented as approved by grant administration.
One charge was a payment of $3,200 to the KSU Foundation’s Executive Secretary for editing a book that was partially being written and edited by the former President of KSU. There was a request submitted to purchase the book that was denied by the former Title III grant manager.
KSU was awarded multiple Title III, Part B HBCU-Masters grants to improve graduate education opportunities at the master's level in mathematics, engineering, physical or natural sciences, computer science, information technology, nursing, allied health, or other scientific disciplines where African American students are underrepresented. We selected for review 27 charges totaling $430,599 of the $942,180 examination period Title III, Part B HBCU Master's Program transactions and noted the following issues:
Over $127,000 in transactions had either no supporting documentation, insufficient documentation, or documentation for the wrong transaction.
Of those 10 transactions that had supporting documentation, only 1 was documented as approved by grant administration.
KSU was awarded $1,173,400 from the Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) for reimbursement of eligible expenditures in response to COVID-19. We selected for review $341,973 of $1,173,400 CRF transactions and noted the following:
CRF expenditures totaling $52,270 were found to be for unallowable purchases including light bulbs, a regular operating expense not affected by COVID-19, and charges for “liberal leave” which was COVID leave that was allocated to employees but was not used.
There were several systemic failures that allowed the issues in this finding to occur. They include the following:
The breakdown of internal controls was caused in part by a lack of knowledge of new COVID-19 related grant requirements by KSU upper-level management. COVID-19 related grants were not properly implemented.
There was a lack of institutional knowledge of the requirements of the many different federal grants. Due to this lack of knowledge, suitable internal controls were not put in place to make sure the federal requirements for this funding stream were followed. The normal chain of grant authority and management was not followed by KSU executive staff.
KSU's accounting software was not properly utilized to track new grants.
Another issue impacting KSU grant management was the high amount of turnover. According to former grant management staff, there was no organization in the Office of Grants and Sponsored Programs, and people did not know their roles.