Ca program audit

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Describe the aspects of your work experience that you think make you especially well-qualified to work in the State Auditor's Office. Include a description of your experience with laws generally applicable to government operations.

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Failure to submit the required documentation may result in disqualification from the hiring process. Included in each audit are all ca mpaign statements filed by all candidates for elective office, from statewide offices to local jurisdictions, as well as all reports filed by lobbying firms and lobbyist employers.

Statements filed by state ballot measure committees and state general purpose committees are also included. All candidates and committees are required to keep detailed accounts, records, bills, and receipts as necessary to prepare their campaign statements and reports. One of the reasons CDSS did not issue timely payments to families for school year —21 is that the federal government took several months to authorize the program and issue related guidance.

In order for a state to access these federal funds, Congress must appropriate funds and authorize the program and a state must receive approval from USDA. Congress authorized payments for the remaining months of school year —21 on October 1, Because USDA and the states still needed to develop guidance and plans for distributing these payments, the timing of the federal legislation not only essentially guaranteed that families would not receive payments for October until after that month passed but also increased the likelihood that CDSS would struggle to distribute payments for the rest of the school year in a timely manner.

These changed requirements altered the way states could administer their programs and prompted USDA to reissue guidance for program administration. USDA's guidance takes two primary forms: an application template and supplemental documents that describe what to include in the plan and answer common questions about the program requirements.

Therefore, the department could do little to address or mitigate the delay resulting from these factors. For school year —20 and August and September , USDA permitted a straightforward approach for calculating these payments. Congress allowed states to simplify the process of calculating payment amounts for school year — In December , Congress further clarified that states could use the simplifying assumptions and best feasibly available data to determine a school's status as opened or closed or to set a standard payment amount for regions within the state or for the state as a whole.

To justify using those assumptions, CDSS indicated that the time it would take to complete the administrative tasks required to determine payment amounts at the student level would prohibit it from achieving the intended goal of providing timely nutrition assistance to children in response to the ongoing public health emergency.

In other words, CDSS proposed to avail itself of the option to use a simplifying assumption that Congress had indicated was allowable when it clarified federal law in December In that guidance, USDA explained that states should align school year —21 payment amounts as closely as possible to children's circumstances, but it also encouraged states to make reasonable simplifying assumptions.

USDA acknowledged that it might not be feasible to determine the circumstances of individual students or even the reopening status of each individual school, and it therefore permitted states to set a standard payment amount at the district, regional, or state level as long as the state provided information in its plan to justify its decision. USDA believed that California's public health orders were insufficient for approximating schools' reopening status.

Specifically, USDA noted that the public health orders permitted schools with nearly half of the State's enrolled population to reopen in select circumstances, and it expressed concern that some schools might have done so in the first half of the school year. USDA also rejected this second proposal. When we compared CDSS's plans to federal law and USDA's guidance, we did not identify any clear way that either plan deviated from the law or the guidance.

In particular, both plans appear to have been consistent with USDA's guidance for using simplifying assumptions to determine a school's reopening status.

Specifically, it shared the results of a survey of the 25 largest school districts in the State with all but one stating that they were closed from August until early January Moreover, USDA indicated in November and January that it would consider approving plans with alternative approaches that might not align entirely with its guidance if the plans met statutory requirements. These lengthy delays likely increased hardship for families struggling to provide adequate food to their children.

CDSS has had to complete certain key tasks before it could begin distributing payments. For example, to ensure that it had sufficient data to calculate payment amounts for school year —21, CDSS needed to allow schools time to report their reopening status. It then needed to contact any schools that did not initially indicate their status and, if the schools still did not respond, to estimate those schools' reopening status by analyzing the responses of nearby schools.

We found that two constraints in particular have played large roles in delaying payments during CDSS's implementation process. Staff we spoke with at CDSS said that negotiations with FIS about how many cards it could produce in a particular period were almost entirely verbal and not documented. In January , USDA recommended that states issue payments in multiple batches "to limit pressure on the supply chain" and to protect the program against fraud.

As Figure 5 shows, CDSS is issuing payments in batches—one for the first half of the school year, one for the second half, and one for the summer—lengthening the amount of time families must wait for their payments. For example, CDSS projects that families of children under the age of six will have to wait until November to receive payments that cover the months of February through May According to CDSS, issuing payments in batches reduces the risk that families will overwhelm food retailers by spending large amounts at once.

CDSS's decision to issue payments in batches has extended wait times for critical food assistance payments. Nonetheless, the decision appears reasonable given that USDA issued guidance recommending that states do so.

Although the key elements that delayed CDSS's issuance of payments have been largely outside its control, it has leveraged other factors to reduce the amount of time families have to wait to receive assistance. In particular, CDSS has mitigated delays for school year —21 by eliminating an application requirement.

We believe that CDSS's concerns about these addresses were reasonable because, according to CDSS, neither it nor CDE—the agency that collected the data—typically used those addresses to contact students; thus, schools had little incentive to routinely review and update them.

CDSS's use of an application was similar to the approach taken by other states we reviewed. One of these three states also required some families to apply for benefits for school year — Nonetheless, the application requirement appears to have significantly contributed to delayed payment for many families.

Specifically, in April —10 months after school year —20 ended—CDSS reported that the families of more than , eligible children had yet to receive assistance for school year — These families had either never applied or had submitted an application that CDSS did not process because either the families or the children's schools appeared to have submitted incorrect information.

CDSS stated that sometimes families made mistakes on their applications or school administrators mistyped eligible students' information, preventing CDSS from processing the families' applications. CDSS stated that it performed outreach to schools in the months after USDA approved its school year —20 plan; and through that outreach, it collected sufficiently reliable mailing address data. Testing and validation are completed and work papers are written.

With these work papers, findings are documented and sent to the entity in a weekly status report for review. Upon completion of the interviews and testing, a draft report is written, encompassing all information gathered during the audit. This report is sent to the entity for review. The entity has an opportunity to address any issue identified during the audit and provide evidence to the contrary. Once all issues are settled, a final report is sent to the entity. Need more information? What can an audit do for our organization?

An information security audit is a type of compliance audit that identifies potential cyber security gaps.