(The Center Square) – Auditors questioned the spending of more than $2.5 million in grant funds from the federal Department of Transportation related to the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Nespelem, Washington, for highway planning and construction.
That’s according to a federal “Summary Report on Significant Single Audit Findings Impacting DOT Programs for the 3-Month Period Ending June 30, 2023.”
Among the findings of the Office of Inspector General report were questioned costs totaling nearly $2.9 million for five grantees, meaning the Nespelem case accounts for the vast majority of said costs.
“We queried and downloaded 93 single audit reports prepared by non-Federal auditors and submitted to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse between April 1, 2023, and June 30, 2023, to identify significant findings related to programs directly funded by the Department of Transportation (DOT),” the Tuesday report explains.
Per the report, a project in the town of Nespelem – located in Okanogan County in north central Washington along the U.S.-Canada border – didn’t meet compliance requirements twice.
In the first case, auditors found management had not implemented an effective control system to ensure inventory records agreed with the capital asset ledger. Nor did management maintain property records in fiscal year 2021, and no physical inventory was taken in 2020 or 2021 for all programs.
The report recommends that a physical inventory be conducted and reconciled with the general ledger and the capital asset listing at least every two years.
In the second case, auditors found that “3 of 4 individually important items and 4 of 5 procurement samples did not have any documentation that competitive bidding was performed.”
The report recommends the retention of bid documentation by enforcing established procurement policies and procedures and improving staff training on such matters.
“We recommend that DOT coordinate with the impacted OAs [Operating Administrations] to develop a corrective action plan to resolve and close the findings identified in this report,” the report states. “We also recommend that DOT determine the allowability of the questioned transactions and recover $2,892,004, if applicable.”
