State audit dings Benton-Franklin Health District

The Benton-Franklin Health District made a mistake in the way it used to award federal money to a contractor as part of emergency preparedness work.

The mistake led to a state audit finding.

However, the mistake didn’t end up costing any extra money, and district officials are updating policies/procedures and training staff it doesn’t happen again, the state’s audit report said.

The district used about $316,000 in federal funds for its Public Health Emergency Preparedness program during the 2016 fiscal year, the audit report said.

The district paid some of that money to a contractor, but didn’t check to make sure the contractor was allowed to do business with the federal government, the report said. Agencies that receive federal grants are supposed to verify that all contractors receiving $25,000 or more haven’t been suspended, debarred or otherwise excluded, the report said.

If the contractor was excluded, the money would be “subject to recovery by the funding agency,” the report said.

However, it turned out the contractor was OK to do business, so the money didn’t have to be returned.

The district didn’t know about the verification requirement and is updating policies/procedures and training staff, the audit report said.

This story was originally published September 18, 2017 at 4:57 PM with the headline "State audit dings Benton-Franklin Health District."