United States Department of Education program monitoring findings across the country indicate that many local educational agencies (LEAs) across the states are failing to comply with the required employee certifications for work completed and compensated with federal funds.

Where employees are expected to work solely on a single Federal award or cost objective, charges for their salaries and wages will be supported by periodic certifications that the employees worked solely on that program for the period covered by the certification. These certifications will be prepared at least semi annually and will be signed by the employee or supervisory official having first hand knowledge of the work performed by the employee.

In the instances where employees work on multiple activities and are assigned to different cost objectives, a distribution of their salary must be clearly demonstrated and supported in the personnel activity records. These records must account for the total/overall work activity for which each employee is compensated with federal funds, and must be prepared at least monthly to coincide with one or more pay periods. They must be signed by the employee, and employee signatures must be original and verifiable.

The Department's Office of Educational Management Services has developed a Reference Manual For Audits of Financial Statements of New York State School Districts (2010) that includes a section on ‘Certification of Payroll Funded Through Federal Awards’ on pages 34 and 35.

• Sample Personnel Activity Report For Split-Funded Staff (Salary from multiple sources) (27.5 KB)
  
  
• Sample Employee Payroll Certification (EPC) Statement for Staff Who Are Fully Funded (100%) by Title I, Part A Funds (21.5 KB)