(The Center Square) – An audit of federal COVID funds completed by the State Auditor’s office revealed a lack of supporting data for millions of dollars doled out to counties that could lead to the return of some of the funding.
The federal government will make the ultimate decision as to what happens with the money. But the audit of federal spending in Fiscal Year 2021 showed amounts received by the cities and counties did not match what CARES Forward, an office created by Gov. Kevin Stitt to oversee the fund distribution, recorded.
“As we have been out here doing these county audits, we have found that, in some instances, the CARES Forward team accepted handwritten descriptions that they reimbursed the county for,” State Auditor Cindy Byrd said in an interview with The Center Square. “And as we are auditing the counties, the counties can’t back up what was turned in.”
This means, according to the audit, that the state may have reimbursed unallowable costs or may not be in compliance with federal statutes and regulations and the conditions for the award. In some cases, the state may have paid for products or services that were not received or performed, according to the audit.
For some of Oklahoma’s 77 counties, this could be devastating.
“Our counties don’t have a lot of extra money,” Byrd said.”This was really going to help them. But if it was misspent and they had to pay it back in the state of Oklahoma, they would have to have a judgment against the taxpayers. It would go on the property tax levy for three years and raise the property taxes in order to pay back a large amount of funds that were misspent if the county did not have the money to pay it outright, which most of them don’t.”
The auditor’s office looks at counties every two years. So far, an audit of Cleveland County raised questions about a little over $200,000, Byrd said.
“I would say at this point, we probably identified a half a million dollars in question that there was not supporting documentation for,” Byrd said of the audits. “But we are just now starting these audits. I have no idea what will we find.”
In response to the finding, the state said a new office created in June 2021 is designed to “better administer and manage all of the federal grants and relief packages received by the state.” The Grants Management Office is reviewing the funding as audits are completed. Some remedies include on-site visits and “the exchange of questionable costs with allowable expenditures.”
“The State has engaged a consulting team to continue Subrecipient Monitoring for CRF subrecipients,” the state said in its response. “To date this effort is ongoing due to the delay in published audits many subrecipients have experienced, a problem directly attributable to the enormous influx of federal relief funds and lack of available auditors.”
This article First appeared in the center square