Grants Review Oversight Benefitting
K-12 Students in the State of Idaho
Client
State of Idaho
Sector
Government
The state of Idaho awarded a contract to BMRA for the purpose of reviewing the Empowering Parents Grant Program (EPGP). The EPGP is funded by Federal Coronavirus Relief Funds to help K-12 students recover from the adverse educational impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program provides grants of up to $1,000 per student or $3,000 per family over a two-year period to purchase eligible education services and devices through an online marketplace.
BMRA was provided a master spreadsheet of 60,000 transactions incurred-to-date under the subject grant program for the purpose of reviewing every transaction for compliance. In many instances, the transaction description included a string consisting of multiple items grouped together with only a total dollar amount for the entire transaction.
BMRA applied a two-phase approach identifying a team of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and each SME conducted the first pass of reviewing each transaction assigned and marked questionable expenses to bring back to the team to discuss in phase 2.
The task at hand was to provide an end-of-project report summarizing all deficiencies.
The report identified to include but not limited to the following:
- All incorrectly made purchases
- Justification for why they were incorrect per Idaho Statute or US Treasury guidelines
- A report summarizing how these purchases were allowed
- Recommendations to improve security and the transaction process based on how the program is currently operating
The Empowering Parents Grant Program is well positioned to positively impact Idaho families. To date, the program has benefited 49,429 children across the state, with the vast majority of purchases doing exactly what they were intended to do–support improved educational outcomes for Idaho children. This efficiency is a result of OSBE and Odyssey having worked together to review and revise program administration workflows on both sides to ensure that this highly successful program stays on track to move forward. With less than 1% of the purchases made being deemed ineligible and proper recourse having been established to rectify, it is believed that this program has filled a massive need in Idaho’s education system. Reimbursement is in process and procedures have been established to prevent such purchases in the future. The collaboration between OSBE and Odyssey has resulted in a fine-tuned, well-managed program that has helped tens of thousands of students.
External review of the Empowering Parents Grant Program included over 60,000 purchases made by grant awardees from November 2022 through the end of July 2023. Of those 60,000+ purchases, 174 were identified as potentially being “incorrectly made” which is less than 1% of the total purchases. The total estimated cost of these purchases was approximately $40,614. This amount represents 0.10% of the total value of all purchases reviewed, whether paid or pending.
Grants Review Oversight Benefitting
K-12 Students in the State of Idaho
State of Idaho
Sector
Government
The state of Idaho awarded a contract to BMRA for the purpose of reviewing the Empowering Parents Grant Program (EPGP). The EPGP is funded by Federal Coronavirus Relief Funds to help K-12 students recover from the adverse educational impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program provides grants of up to $1,000 per student or $3,000 per family over a two-year period to purchase eligible education services and devices through an online marketplace.
BMRA was provided a master spreadsheet of 60,000 transactions incurred-to-date under the subject grant program for the purpose of reviewing every transaction for compliance. In many instances, the transaction description included a string consisting of multiple items grouped together with only a total dollar amount for the entire transaction.
BMRA applied a two-phase approach identifying a team of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and each SME conducted the first pass of reviewing each transaction assigned and marked questionable expenses to bring back to the team to discuss in phase 2.
The task at hand was to provide an end-of-project report summarizing all deficiencies.
The report identified to include but not limited to the following:
- All incorrectly made purchases
- Justification for why they were incorrect per Idaho Statute or US Treasury guidelines
- A report summarizing how these purchases were allowed
- Recommendations to improve security and the transaction process based on how the program is currently operating
The Empowering Parents Grant Program is well positioned to positively impact Idaho families. To date, the program has benefited 49,429 children across the state, with the vast majority of purchases doing exactly what they were intended to do–support improved educational outcomes for Idaho children. This efficiency is a result of OSBE and Odyssey having worked together to review and revise program administration workflows on both sides to ensure that this highly successful program stays on track to move forward. With less than 1% of the purchases made being deemed ineligible and proper recourse having been established to rectify, it is believed that this program has filled a massive need in Idaho’s education system. Reimbursement is in process and procedures have been established to prevent such purchases in the future. The collaboration between OSBE and Odyssey has resulted in a fine-tuned, well-managed program that has helped tens of thousands of students.
External review of the Empowering Parents Grant Program included over 60,000 purchases made by grant awardees from November 2022 through the end of July 2023. Of those 60,000+ purchases, 174 were identified as potentially being “incorrectly made” which is less than 1% of the total purchases. The total estimated cost of these purchases was approximately $40,614. This amount represents 0.10% of the total value of all purchases reviewed, whether paid or pending.