Oklahoma's Monitoring of CSBG Funds Provided to Community Action Agencies Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The Oklahoma Department of Commerce (State agency) did not establish adequate internal controls for assessing and monitoring Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) funds provided to Community Action Agencies (CAA) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act).

Specifically, the State agency did not have policies or procedures in place to effectively monitor CAAs administering funds provided by the Recovery Act and did not accurately report Recovery Act information. Without adequate controls, Recovery Act and CSBG program funds may be at risk for fraud, waste, and abuse by CAAs.

We recommended that the State agency develop and implement adequate written policies and procedures to effectively monitor CAAs administering CSBG funds and ensure that the CSBG funds provided by the Recovery Act were reported accurately on the Federal and State Recovery Act Web sites. The State agency concurred with one finding, partially concurred with two findings, disagreed with two findings, and neither agreed nor disagreed with one finding.