Results of Limited Scope Review at Lowcountry Community Action Agency, Inc.

We reviewed the financial conditions at Lowcountry Community Action Agency, Inc. (Lowcountry), 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 Recovery Act.

Generally, Lowcountry is financially viable and has the capacity to manage and account for Federal funds and to operate its Head Start program in accordance with Federal regulations. However, we identified certain issues concerning oversight by the Board of Directors, lack of timely financial reporting, and physical security over credit cards.

Also, in its prior review, ACF noted that a contract between Lowcountry and a financial consultant for financial services did not contain pertinent information, such as the services to be provided, the amount to be paid, and the provisions for terminating the contract. Lowcountry revised the current contract for calendar year 2009 to include that information.

We recommended that ACF, in determining whether Lowcountry should be awarded additional Head Start and Recovery Act grant funding, consider the information presented in this report in assessing Lowcountry's capacity to manage and account for Federal funds.

In comments on our draft report, Lowcountry disagreed with our finding on its Board of Directors' oversight and said that it had obtained verbal approval from ACF to file its financial reports late. Lowcountry also included documents with additional information relative to the report's findings. Lowcountry's comments did not cause us to change our findings.