Financial Integrity Mechanisms. The Grants/Contract (G/C) Specialist manages and oversees all planning related grants, contracts and financial monitoring/reporting, including procurement. In addition we are currently developing policies and procedures to ensure internal policies to control and detect fraud, waste and abuse are developed and followed, and financial information is available to the public. Systems are in place to assure separate accounting and bookkeeping for different grants. When a federal grant is awarded, it is assigned a separate state WBS element number, separate cost center, separate fund code and separate fund center for tracking purposes. All contracts requiring competitive bids are procured according to state and federal policy. The AID financial office records electronically all contracts awarded with grant funds. To pay on a contract, a vendor must submit an invoice specific to the deliverable that is required for payment. The G/C Specialist verifies the deliverable was received and provides a signatory on the invoice submitted for payment. The G/C Specialist notes which cost center or grant the invoice is to be paid from and which line item the invoice is to be paid from. The G/C Specialist then submits the invoice to the AID accounting office whose staff deducts the appropriate amount from the assigned GL number, and remits payment to the vendor. The AID Accounting Division records amounts electronically and gives a copy of the record to the G/C Specialist at the end of the month. The G/C Specialist keeps a separate accounting ledger in Excel format to ensure proper checks and balances with the internal AID accounting office, and compares the submitted monthly reconciliation report with the internal grant budget to ensure the expenditures were deducted from the correct accounts according to federal and state policy. In addition, the G/C Specialist, under supervision of the HBEPD director, must authorize expenditures internally for items such as purchasing, and externally such as submitting payment on a contract, before it is submitted to the AID business office for payment. The G/C Specialist is also establishing additional policies and procedures to monitor the expenditure of travel funds. Procedures are being implemented to insure that before any travel arrangements are made using grant funds, the travel is both necessary and essential to the development of grant activities.
