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Part II: Pre-Award Requirements |
Chapter 3: Standards for Financial Management Systems |
HIGHLIGHTS OF CHAPTER:
All recipients are required to establish and maintain accounting systems and financial records to accurately account for funds awarded to them. These records shall include both Federal funds and all matching funds of State, local, and private organizations, when applicable. State recipients shall expend and account for grant funds in accordance with State laws and procedures for expending and accounting for their own funds. Subrecipients of States shall follow the financial management requirements imposed on them by States. (State and local procedures must ensure that subrecipients comply with the financial management standards found at 28 CFR Parts 66 and 70.) ACCOUNTING SYSTEM The recipient is responsible for establishing and maintaining an adequate system of accounting and internal controls for itself, and for ensuring that an adequate system exists for each of its subrecipients. An acceptable and adequate accounting system:
Funds may be awarded as formula/block or discretionary awards. The various financial requirements and formulas of the awarding agency's programs, as well as the need for recipients to separately account for individual awards, require a special program account structure extending beyond normal classification by type of receipts, expenditures, assets, and liabilities.
TOTAL COST BUDGETING AND ACCOUNTING Accounting for all funds awarded by the Federal agency shall be structured and executed on a "total program cost" basis. That is, total program costs, including Federal funds, State and local matching shares, and any other fund sources included in the approved project budget or received as program income shall be the foundation for fiscal administration, accounting, and audit. Unless otherwise prohibited by statute, applications for funding and financial reports require budget and cost estimates on the basis of total costs. COMMINGLING OF FUNDS Federal agencies shall not require physical segregation of cash deposits or the establishment of any eligibility requirements for funds which are provided to a recipient. However, the accounting systems of all recipients and subrecipients must ensure that agency funds are not commingled with funds from other Federal agencies. Each award must be accounted for separately. Recipients and subrecipients are prohibited from commingling funds on either a program-by-program or project-by-project basis. Funds specifically budgeted and/or received for one project may not be used to support another. Where a recipient's or subrecipient's accounting system cannot comply with this requirement, the recipient or subrecipient shall establish a system to provide adequate fund accountability for each project it has been awarded. RECIPIENT AND SUBRECIPIENT ACCOUNTING RESPONSIBILITIES
Where the conduct of a program or one of its components is delegated to a subrecipient, the direct recipient is responsible for all aspects of the program including proper accounting and financial recordkeeping by the subrecipient. Responsibilities include the accounting of receipts and expenditures, cash management, the maintaining of adequate financial records, and the refunding of expenditures disallowed by audits. CASH DEPOSITORIES In accordance with the administrative requirements for government and non-governmental entities, recipients are encouraged to use minority banks (banks which are owned at least 50 percent by minority group members). A list of minority-owned banks may be obtained from the Minority Business Development Agency, Department of Commerce, Washington, DC 20230. SUPPLANTING Federal funds must be used to supplement existing funds for program activities and must not replace those funds that have been appropriated for the same purpose. Supplanting will be the subject of application review, as well as pre-award review, post-award monitoring, and audit. If there is a potential presence of supplanting, the applicant or grantee will be required to supply documentation demonstrating that the reduction in non-Federal resources occurred for reasons other than the receipt or expected receipt of Federal funds. For certain programs, a written certification may be requested by the awarding agency or recipient agency stating that Federal funds will not be used to supplant State or local funds. |
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