Institutional Federal Compliance Report 2021

STATE OF NEW YORK

Schedule of Findings and Questioned Costs

March 31, 2019

Federal Agency:

United States Department of Education

Federal Program:

Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies (84.010)

Federal Award Numbers:

S010A160032, S010A170032, and S010A180032

Federal Award Years:

2016, 2017, and 2018

State Agency:

State Education Department

Reference:

2019-036

Criteria 20 U.S. Code Section 6311 (20 USC 6311 or ESEA), State plans , part (b)(2)(A) requires each State plan to demonstrate that the State educational agency, in consultation with local educational agencies, has implement a set of high-quality student academic assessments in mathematics, reading or language arts, and science. The State retains the right to implement such assessment in any other subject chosen by the State. Further, 20 USC 6311(b)(2)(B)(iii) and Section 1111 (b)(2)(B)(iii) of ESEA requires the assessment under subparagraph (A) to be used for purposes for which such assessments are valid and reliable, consistent with relevant, nationally recognized professional and technical testing standards, objectively measure academic achievement, knowledge, and skills, and be tests that do not evaluate or assess personal or family beliefs and attitudes, or publicly disclose personally identifiable information. Additionally, Title 2 U.S. Code of Federal Regulations Part 200 (2 CFR 200), Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards , section 200.303(a) states the nonfederal entities must establish and maintain effective internal control over the Federal award that provides reasonable assurance that the nonfederal entity is managing the Federal award in compliance with Federal statutes, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the Federal award. Condition During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019, the New York State Education Department (the Department) passed through $1,235,294,000 of federal funding to local education agencies (LEAs). In order to ascertain that LEAs have policies and procedures in place for ensuring LEA’s and its school implement test security measures and to verify that the LEA and its schools implemented test security measures the Test Security Unit (TSU) at the State Department of Education implemented two procedures: • The TSU conducts site visits to schools during test administration to observe field processes and identify areas for improvement. The monitoring visits are performed to observe that boxes of secured material are properly stored and the school was administering the tests appropriately. • The Department collects certificates from every school that administers testing; these certificate are attestations of the LEA maintaining policies and procedures. The certificates include the following areas exam scoring certificates, exam storage certificates and deputy and proctor certificate. For 6 of 72 schools (project years) selected for testwork, some of the LEAs required certificates were not signed by the appropriate LEA staff and the Department had not taken steps to follow up and obtain the missing signatures until after it was noted during the federal single audit.

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