Results of Limited-Scope Review at Mid-Columbia Children's Council, Inc., for the Head Start and Early Head Start Programs

We reviewed the financial conditions at Mid-Columbia Children's Council, Inc. (Mid-Columbia), as part of a nationwide series of reviews requested by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Head Start, for use in its overall assessment of Head Start grantees that have applied for additional funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). We found that Mid-Columbia is fiscally viable. In addition, Mid Columbia's financial management system adequately managed and accounted for Federal funds except for its systems and internal controls related to property management. Specifically, Mid-Columbia did not perform a physical inventory of its equipment at least once every 2 years as required by Federal regulations, and Mid-Columbia's equipment inventory records did not contain all required information.

Mid-Columbia acknowledged that it did not complete a physical inventory of its equipment in the past 2 years and provided information on corrective action that it planned to take to improve its systems and internal controls related to property management.

We recommended that ACF, in determining whether Mid-Columbia should be awarded additional Head Start and Recovery Act grant funding, consider the information presented in this report in assessing Mid-Columbia's financial condition.