SINGLE AUDIT. Survey of CFO Act Agencies

According to 0MB, federal awards for fiscal year 2001 totaled about 325 billion of the 1.8 trillion federal budget. The Departments of Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation were responsible for managing about 86 percent of the federal awards in fiscal year 2001. The Single Audit Act, as amended, established the concept of the single audit to replace multiple grant audits with one audit of the recipient as a whole. As such, a single audit is an organization wide audit that focuses on the recipients internal controls and compliance with laws and regulations governing federal awards and should be viewed as a tool that raises relevant or pertinent questions rather than as a document that answers all questions. Federal awards include grants, loans, loan guarantees, property cooperative agreements, interest subsidies, insurance, food commodities, and direct appropriations and federal cost reimbursement contracts. The objectives of the Single Audit Act, as amended, are to promote sound financial management, including effective internal controls, with respect to federal awards administered by nonfederal entities establish uniform requirements for audits of federal awards administered by nonfederal entities promote the efficient and effective use of audit resources reduce burdens on state and local governments, Indian tribes, and nonprofit organizations and ensure that federal departments and agencies, to the maximum extent practicable, rely upon and use audit work done pursuant to the act. Recipients of federal awards who expend 300,000 or more in a year are required to comply with the Single Audit Acts requirements. In general, they must 1 maintain internal control over federal programs, 2 comply with laws, regulations, and the provisions of contracts or grant agreements...