audit_findings: 50

This data as json

rowid	source	report_number	finding_number	muni_id	state	entity_name	entity_type	entity_ext_id	place_geoid	match_method	auditor	report_title	audit_type	fiscal_year	period_start	period_end	published_date	finding_category	severity	questioned_cost	cost_basis	finding_title	finding_text	report_url	fetched_at
50	wa-sao	1021391	2017-001		WA	Kiona-Benton City School District No 52	School District	1818		no_match	Washington State Auditor's Office	Financial and Federal audit — Kiona-Benton City School District No 52	Financial and Federal	2017	2016-09-01	2017-08-31	2018-05-31	federal_award_compliance	material_weakness	0.0	Questioned Cost Amount: $0	The District did not have adequate internal controls to ensure compliance with the federal Title I grant requi rements for Assessment System Security. CFDA Number and Title: 84.010 – Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies Federal Grantor Name: U.S. Department of Education Federal Award/Contract Number: NA Pass-through Entity Name: Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Pass-th	Background The federal Title I program’s objective is to improve the teaching and learning of children who are at risk of not meeting state academic standards and who reside in areas with high concentrations of children from low-income families. During fiscal year 2017, the District spent $537,021 in Title I program funds. Federal regulations require recipients of federal money to establish and follow internal controls to ensure compliance with program requirements. These controls include knowledge of grant requirements and monitoring of program controls. State tests are based on the K-12 learning standards. Students are tested in English language arts, math and science. Assessments measure students’ learning, including the critical -thinking and problem -solving aspect s of the new standards. Results from these tests not only will allow accountability for schools and districts, but also will allow states to be compared to each other in a fair system. OSPI updates assurance forms and training logs yearly to ensure school districts are following the prescribed requirements and have an understanding of any new requirements that should be followed when giving assessments to students. Washington State Auditor's Office Districts must establish and maintain an assessment system that is valid, reliable and consistent with relevant professional and technical standards. Within their assessment system s, states must have policies and procedures to maintain test security and ensure that districts implement those policies and procedures. Description of Condition The District could not show it obtained the most recent version of OSPI’s Security Test Assurance forms. In addition, the District did not retain records of teacher attendance at required trainings or that it followed required security procedures before, during and following assessment testing of students for any of the District’s schools. We consider this internal control deficiency to be a material weakness. This issue was not reported as a finding in the prior audit Cause of Condition The District’s appointed Assessment Coordinator was not aware OSPI had released an updated version of its assessment security form. Also, t he District’s Intermediate Counselor was responsible for maintaining assessment testing documents, including teacher training logs, and prior test assurance and post -test assurance forms. Because of an unexpected vacancy of the position, the District stated it placed all of the Counselor’s files in storage, but could not locate them. Effect of Condition The District was unable to demonstrate it complied with its District Security Plan for ensuring security requirements over Assessment Tests were followed in compliance with OSPI policies and procedures . The District also was unable to provide completed test assurance forms from each school in the District and did not obtain the most recent version of OSPI’s assessment security forms for distribution to each school. The District schools include: • K-2: Primary • 3-5: Intermediate • 6-8: Middle • 9-12: High The Dis trict also did not comply with the requirements for retaining adequate support (test assurance forms and teacher training logs) as required. Washington State Auditor's Office Recommendation We recom mend the District develop controls to ensure it uses the most recent version of OSPI ’s Assessment Test System forms and develop policies and procedures to store and safeguard the forms completed for each school. District’s Response We concur with the State Auditor’s federal audit from the period September 1. 2016 through August 31, 2017. The records retention issue found by the auditor was a mere error by our assessment coordinator and lack of oversite by our federal grants director. We have made some changes to our processes to ensure that in the future proper document retention requirements are followed the District will: 1) go over all procedures with the Assessment Coordinator each year 2) have the Assessment Coordinator maintain a copy of the testing security documents at the conclusion of each state testing session and all originals documentation will be sent to the Federal Program Director to ensure records are maintained and available for audit or inspection. These changes should help minimize this concern in the future. Auditor’s Remarks We thank the District for its cooperation throughout the audit and the s teps it is taking to address these concerns. We will review the status of the District’s corrective action during our next audit Applicable Laws and Regulations The American Insti tute of Ce rtified Publi c A ccountants de fines sig nificant deficiencies and material weaknesses in its Codification of Statements on Auditing Standards, section 935, Compliance Audits, paragraph 11. Title 2 U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (Uniform Guidance), section 303 Internal controls, describes the requirements for auditees to maintain internal controls over federal programs and comply with federal program requirements. Title 20 U.S. Code section 6311(b)(3)(C)(iii) requires state and local education agencies to establish and maintain a valid, reliable assessment systems, consistent with relevant professional and technical standards. Washington State Auditor's Office	https://portal.sao.wa.gov/ReportSearch/Home/ViewReportFile?arn=1021391&isFinding=false&sp=false	2026-07-30 13:24:54