E-003 Lessons Learned - Surviving an OIG Audit Your First Day on the Job - with Amanda Day and Lucy Morgan
Episode Summary: 003 Grant Talks Podcast
### Quick Episode Summary Grant Talks Podcast [#003]
*Intro ***.41***
* Fire Away Questions Amanda Day GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA ***1:07***
* Lessons Learned-Surviving an OIG Audit Finding ***4:55***
* Getting Started-Build a Team for a Corrective Action***5:55***
* How Long Does It Take to Clean Up OIG Audit Issues? ***7:58***
* Why Training Matters: Communication of Grant Requirements***8:26***
* Danger: Supplanting with Grant Funds is Prohibited***10:38***
* How to Increase Communication and Teamwork with Grant Teams***12:32***
* The Last Word with Amanda Day GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA***17:02***
*Outro Audio GrantTalks Podcast with Lucy M. Morgan CPA ***18:27***
Be sure to subscribe to the show!
- Listen to Lucy’s Welcome Message in Episode 001
Click on the Player Below to Listen to the Podcast
Intro: 00:00
Welcome to the Grant Talks podcast with Lucy Morgan. Lucy is the CEO and director of MyFedTrainer.com a leading provider of grant management training and templates for federal grant recipients. This show is for grant professionals looking to gain confidence in managing their grants, in an age of increasing complexity. You'll hear from leading professionals on the best practices surrounding grants, what's involved in successfully managing the grants lifecycle and how to make sure your grants are managed correctly. Now here's your host, Lucy Morgan.
Introduction: Amanda Day GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA
Lucy Morgan CPA: 00:41
Welcome everyone to this continuing conversation with Amanda Day GPC. Amanda is a Grant Writing USA trainer and the cohost of Fundraising Hay Day, a podcast about grants. She is also the vice president of the Grant Professional Association (GPA) and previously served on the Grant Professional Certification Institute (GPCI) board and I'm Lucy Morgan, the host for this session. Welcome back, Amanda.
Amanda Day GPC: 01:05
Thanks for having me again, Lucy.
Fire Away Questions with Amanda Day GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA
Lucy Morgan CPA: 01:07
First of all, let's get to know you a little better with a couple of "fire away" questions. Amanda, you mentioned that you are a traveler. What has been one of your most memorable food experiences in your travels?
Amanda Day GPC: 01:20
I have had quite a few, but what's funny is on my Facebook memories today actually popped up three years ago, I was in Syracuse, New York and met Diane Leonard, a fellow grant professional. She had picked this little kind of small little place, kind of a halfway between where she lived and where I was teaching for dinner. And that night they had a special, kind of course lineup that was all bacon themed. Even the drink there was a bacon-infused vodka with a bacon garnish on it. And so, I'm a big fan of bacon myself. So, that was probably a very memorable, meal out with a friend.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 01:57
That would be memorable. A bacon martini or something.
Amanda Day GPC: 01:58
Yes.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 02:01
Yeah. Wow.
Amanda Day GPC: 02:02
Who knew it was a thing.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 02:03
I'm going to look for that next time I'm in upstate New York.
Amanda Day GPC: 02:07
There you go.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 02:08
I also saw that you're a big George Bulldogs fan. And what's your favorite part about the Georgia Bulldogs experience?
Amanda Day GPC: 02:16
Well, I have to confess, I did not go to the University of Georgia, but my husband did. In fact, both of his degrees are from there. And so he has converted me to be a Bulldog's fan, much to the chagrin of my family who are all from Tennessee. So you can imagine, that that did not go well when I switched allegiances. But for me, it's just we have season tickets and go to all the games and just the fanfare. As someone, I went to a much smaller college, we had a football team. But when I was there they were lucky to win one game a season plus, it was much smaller. And so just we enjoy the tailgating, the fanfare. And they've been having a pretty good run these last couple of years. So, we hope to eventually win a national championship. But until then we enjoy what we've got.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 02:57
Well, I graduated from the University of South Florida, which when I graduated, did not have a football team, but has since added a football team that is doing very well too. So I totally get that football experience. How do you think college prepared you for life as a grant manager?
Amanda Day GPC: 03:15
Well, as you know, there still is not a degree you can get, in grant writing. and I'll be honest, I do not have any sort of an accounting background. My degrees are in psychology and communications. So certainly the communications, I did take a lot of writing classes, but I think just college as a whole experience, prepared me for the job because I always took a full load. I did four years straight through, always juggled that. I was a cheerleader in college. I worked part-time with the local paper as well, in between that and just social activity. So, I just learned to kind of balance in writing to-do lists and things like that. They’re things that continue to serve me well today.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 03:56
So it sounds like you're used to a deadline-driven environment.
Amanda Day GPC: 03:59
Exactly.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 04:00
Well, I can tell you, having come out of college with an accounting degree, they don't prepare you for grants even in accounting.
Amanda Day GPC: 04:07
Well, that makes me feel better.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 04:09
I had one class in college called fund accounting. I have to tell people, not fun, f-u-n, but fund f-u-n-d.
Amanda Day GPC: 04:17
That "d" makes a difference.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 04:18
In the very first day of class, the instructor said welcome to accounting from the 1800s and if you don't go into government, you'll never use any of this. And that was it.
Amanda Day GPC: 04:27
That's encouraging. Right.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 04:30
So sometimes I don't, I'm not sure. You know, college necessarily class wise is preparing you to be a grant manager.
Amanda Day GPC: 04:36
I think sometimes it is much more the experience as a whole. I know very few people who went to college for the thing they're doing now, but the experience certainly helped get them there. That's for sure.
Live from the NGMA Conference – Lessons Learned-Surviving an OIG Audit Finding
Lucy Morgan CPA: 04:45
Well, Amanda, in our last section we talked about some of the challenges that you faced when you walked into an OIG, findings, and audit on your first day on the job. Let's get into some of the lessons learned from that experience. Can you briefly describe how you found yourself in that position?
Amanda Day GPC: 05:01
Well, like we talked about in the previous interview when I interviewed for the job there, no one spoke of the fact that this audit had just happened. And part of why I was being hired was to come in and clean this up. I think a big thing was prior to my arrival on the scene, and it wasn't even that, I came in and saved the day by any stretch, but it was just, no one had really gotten a handle on grants. Finance had done their able best. but just a lot of departments were kind of going out and doing their own thing. There were no processes in place for even approval of submitting grants and where the match was coming from and who was going to do the reporting. And so, when things were just happening willy-nilly, there is just a lot of not well-done reporting in requirements being met on that side if there's no sense of organization or somebody in charge of it. So I came in and got hired and got to try to put some better processes in place.
Getting Started-Build a Team for a Corrective Action
Lucy Morgan CPA: 05:55
So you talked some of the challenges that you faced when you did that. What, what did you have to overcome the really the quickest? What would be the first things that you really had to get on top of quickly once you came into the situation?
Amanda Day GPC: 06:08
I think the biggest thing was just figuring out how to tackle it. They were after I showed up, they were able to close two of the findings that were still five, pretty decent sized ones left. And I think I mentioned before, OIG is nice to assign you kind of a contact there that walks you through it and the best advice the gentleman gave me was start with the easiest and let's work our way through because that way you can close those out pretty quickly. I was also very fortunate. I learned if you are not a finance person, it's always good to get a finance person in your corner. And so the finance department was very kind, assigned an accountant to me. and together we were able to work and through and things I couldn't figure out. She knew and vice versa. So, that was a good lesson for me, how helpful finance folks can be and we may think differently sometimes. But it's nice to have that kind of the two halves of the brain there.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 06:58
And did you have to go find someone in finance or did finance step up?
Amanda Day GPC: 07:02
The Director, I went and talked to him. And he assigned me somebody who was very willing and able to help me. So that's it was definitely a lesson learned is it takes a village and it kind of like with raising kids too, with grants, that takes a little bit of everybody to do their piece. and thankfully everybody I worked with had that mentality. They didn't just like throw me to the wolves. So it could've been bad.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 07:23
So what I heard as some of the first steps are; going after the low hanging fruit, get a team. Is there anything else that I missed in kind of the first steps is you're trying to get your arms around this problem.
Amanda Day GPC: 07:35
I think too is to manage expectations is a good one. I'll let everybody know this is not, it took years for y'all to get into this spot. I can't fix it in six months probably. I mean I'll do my best, but there may be some things that take longer. and again, just managing expectations of just because you have a grant person now doesn't that mean I can magically make it all go away? So that was important too.
How Long Does It Take to Clean Up OIG Audit Issues?
Lucy Morgan CPA: 07:58
About how long did it take you until you felt like you had really closed everything?
Amanda Day GPC: 08:02
I think it took us about a year and a half to get it all said and done, which, all things considered, because that in addition to that they were, they were so excited to have me there, I'm writing grants for them and trying to manage to get a handle on the ones they had to make sure we didn't have another audit in the mix of it. So it was, it wasn't my sole focus, my main focus for a while for sure, but I was having to juggle other things too.
Why Training Matters: Communication of Grant Requirements
Lucy Morgan CPA: 08:26
So I'm sure many of us at this point are going, I hope I never have a similar experience of starting a new job and finding out that the OIG had a little bit of work for me to do. And I appreciate your insights into some of the major lessons learned about the experience. What surprised you the most about working through some of these challenges?
Amanda Day GPC: 08:46
You know, some of the things that surprise me, what's interesting, our assistant city manager at the time he had, he had been a police officer then gone back to school and got promoted to that job and he was actually one of the officers that the grant paid for. And so I'm trying to talk to him about it, thinking, oh well he's going to have some insight. He had no idea he was grant-funded. because he had already been employed by the city, they moved him over into that position, which is allowed, then they back-filled his position. So, that was an interesting thing to me is a lot of the people involved didn't even realize there was a grant going on. You know, and I think that's an important thing to make sure anybody who the grant touches, they understand, because whether they have a role or an aspect or just to be aware of that. so I was kind of surprised about that. I was also surprised about again, some of the lack of documentation. and again, I think that goes back to education and experience. If you just don't know better, you don't have it there. It was also interesting trying to clean up, one of the things they had been accused of was supplanting and we were able to prove that they did not supplant. but it took a long time and the HR department actually stepped up because we had, the issue was turnover was happening and so we weren't able to maintain our current force budgeted by the city. And I couldn't just say, Hey, I've solved the problem. It was, it was turnover. That was it. I had to prove that turnover was happening and that we were constantly doing our best. And so I'm digging through files to show anytime they placed a job in the paper for a police officer. Anytime we did any sort of job training, anytime the police chief wrote a memo, to anybody talking about turnover and the issue anytime he spoke to council about it. and so a lot of those things we did have documentation for, but nobody thought to put that in the grant file because it's one of those things you don't realize. And so just trying to figure out with our HR department where all that stuff was, I went through a lot of dusty boxes.
Danger: Supplanting with Grant Funds is Prohibited
Lucy Morgan CPA: 10:38
And for those of you who aren't familiar with this concept of supplanting, that is a concept around, governmental units. The federal government will not pay for the things that your governmental unit is required to provide for your citizens. So if your governmental unit is required to provide police service, the federal government will not pay for that. Does that mean, police departments don't get grants? Of course not. We know they all get grants, but the difference is the federal government will give grants to supplement. This is why words matter. They're not supplanting. And that's a probably a good question if you ever in one of the training classes from either Amanda or myself to ask about supplanting.
Amanda Day GPC: 11:19
I always tell people a good way to know is, if we have 50 budgeted police officers and we get a grant to add five more, we now have 55 officers because the grant is putting us over and above our normal. We don't just now have 50 and instead of, but we only pay for 45 now that's what gets you in trouble.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 11:37
Exactly. What are some of the things like supplanting that you would advise other people to watch out for?
Amanda Day GPC: 11:44
Yeah, definitely supplanting. Also make sure you understand the budget, what you are allowed to pay for and not to pay for. Because like I said, a lot of people just think, well I this for my program, it's vital. It doesn't matter that the funder won't care because I'm doing good work. Which I think the thing too, a lot of times program people, their whole attitude is we're trying to put on a good program. We're trying to feed the hungry, we're trying to help this and do that, but not realizing it's someone else's money. And so paying close attention to the budget and knowing what you can and can't spend your money on, is certainly something that's very, very important. and I can't say again enough document, document, document. Real estate agents always say it's location, location, location. Yeah. For us, document, document, document. Because even if you did everything right, if you can't prove it, they're going to assume you did it wrong.
How to Increase Communication and Teamwork with Grant Teams
Lucy Morgan CPA: 12:32
You mentioned that you had others help resolve the issues.
Amanda Day GPC: 12:34
Yes.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 12:35
And one of the things that I think is so important is getting more of a team involved than feeling like you're the lone ranger out there.
Amanda Day GPC: 12:42
Yes.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 12:43
Working together seems to be a perennial issue that I hear about between especially program folks and finance folks. There's that dynamic tension. Still today communication and teamwork continue to be a huge challenge. How did it help you to get, how did you get help from other areas? How did you involve them? How did you get them to get rid of that adversarial attitude and work together as a team to resolve these issues?
Amanda Day GPC: 13:07
Well, I was raised by a mother who was a firm believer of you catch more flies with honey. So definitely I always walked in with the attitude of I can't do this without you. I tried to be very complimentary and never lie about it, but I mean, just being very open and honest and truthful about telling, this is what I can do, this is what I'm going to need help with — and just trying to build that in. It did help that I was new. So nobody had those preconceived notions of whether I was a finance person or a program person or this person. And so that kind of helped to be able to bridge that gap. being a new person involved. and I just, I'm a big believer in relationships and communication that they're vital for everything. And so just, a lot of it was just sitting down and explaining and I'd never came in demanding things. I was not in the position to do that. I mean, nobody reported to me. I was nobody's boss. And so I'm just trying to have that attitude. And I think too, it helps as a grant person. I was very fortunate that they, when they created the position, they put me in the administration department. So I wasn't a finance person, but I also wasn't a police officer. I wasn't, so I kind of was that I was Switzerland, that neutral ground that could kind of bring folks together. And what's really funny, and this is something I had no control over, the only open desk when I started there was right next to the mayor's office. And so people just assumed that I had all this power because I was right next to the mayor. And sometimes I let them believe that even though it meant nothing, it was the only open office. But I'm like, oh yeah, the mayor, he's nice. We talk every day. Because we did, he walked by my desk every day and said, hey, hey mayor. So sometimes even just where you sit can make a difference in the perceived power that you have.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 14:48
A good lesson in that positional authority.
Amanda Day GPC: 14:49
Exactly.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 14:50
Just be from where your desk happens to be.
Amanda Day GPC: 14:53
And one of the thing I say too, because like I said, when I started at this organization, I was the first person I went to each department head from the outset, like one of the first weeks I was there and I was like, Hey, I'm going to work with anybody in the city that needs help. Because that's, that's my role here. But can you give me one to three people that are kind of, be my liaison for your department just until we all get used to each other and what we need. and so, I called him my grant liaisons and we would meet once a month for probably about the first year. So I was there and really no set agenda, just kind of to talk grants in general, what I can do, what I can't do, what grants are for, what they're not. When I'd see articles in the paper about, grant fraud, I'd bring those. And I'm like, so when you are mad at me, because I won't let you do x, y, and z, I'm telling you, it's, I'm not trying to be a jerk, if you tell me where you want to get, I'll figure out how to get you there. But I'm trying to keep us out of the paper and out of jail. and so, I think that relationship-building to help, just to be able to have that open discussion about what they needed from me and what I was able to give, certainly helped things. And we, we didn't have to keep, 12 years later, I'm not still meeting with those same people, but probably about the first year, just trying to build up that understanding, really helped things as well.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 15:59
I love to go to a strange town and get a newspaper and I can always find a good grant story to share with the class.
Amanda Day GPC: 16:05
It's sad that you can do that.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 16:07
It is sad. But there's always something in there that I can, whether good or bad that I can tie to grants.
Amanda Day GPC: 16:14
Very true.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 16:16
What is your best takeaway for someone hoping for a positive outcome in what's got to feel like very challenging circumstances like the OIG arrives on your first day at work?
Amanda Day GPC: 16:26
You know, I try to take the attitude that it's all a learning experience and so that's just one more thing that I've got in my tool belt that I can, add to my resume and then I can experience that's going to help me be better as I move forward. And fortunately, I have never interacted with the OIG since then. And like I said, that was back in 2004. And so I've had a pretty good run so far hoping to keep it up. I think that just a positive attitude. Know, you're going to get through it on the other side one way or the other. It may not be as happy as you would like, but it's never the end of the world is how I try to see it.
The Last Word with Amanda Day GPC and Lucy Morgan CPA
Lucy Morgan CPA: 17:02
Well, I want to give you the last word. Is there something I should have asked that I didn't about this experience?
Amanda Day GPC: 17:08
I think we pretty much covered the bulk of it. So, yeah, I think we're good.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 17:14
Okay. I'm going to be looking for that OIG contact with the Barry White voice in the future. For sure.
Amanda Day GPC: 17:20
He would make a good podcast interviewee, I think.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 17:22
I would like to do that! So if you're out there Frank Mathers, give me a holler. If someone would like to find out more about you and what you do, how should they get in touch with you?
Amanda Day GPC: 17:33
I'd say the best way is to email me and you can find me at [email protected] and you can also find me on Twitter. My handle. You are going to laugh, but it's @wholewheatgirl and I'm like whole-wheat bread but a whole girl. And where can they find out more about the Fundraising Hay Day podcast? A couple of places you can find our podcast are where you listen to all your favorite podcasts, iTunes and Stitcher and Spotify and you can find us on our website at www.fundraisinghayday.com and Hay Day is h-a-y-d-a-y. and we also have a Twitter account @Fundinghayday.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 18:12
Well, thank you so much for participating in the Grant Talks podcast.
Amanda Day GPC: 18:16
Thanks for having me. This was great.
Lucy Morgan CPA: 18:18
And listeners, if you'd like to find all the episodes, go to GrantTalks.com and thank you for tuning in.
Amanda Day GPC: 18:23
Thanks, Lucy.
Outro: 18:27
To learn more about how MyFedTrainer.com makes grant management more manageable, visit MyFedTrainer.com. That's MyFedTrainer.com. You'll find all the GrantTalks episodes at GrantTalks.com. That's GrantTalks.com.
More About Amanda Day GPC
Amanda Day, GPC, is a national trainer for Grant Writing USA and a grant consultant. With 18 years in the grant field, she specializes in federal and state funding for local governments. She is the co-host of the Fundraising HayDay Podcast with fellow Grant Professional Association Board Member Kimberly Hays de Muga. Follow her on twitter @wholewheatgirl and @fundinghayday. The Funding HayDay Podcast episodes can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and www.fundraisinghayday.com.
More About Lucy Morgan
Lucy M. Morgan is a CPA, MBA, GPA approved trainer, speaker, and author of 3 books including “Decoding Grant Management-The Ultimate Success Guide to the Federal Grant Regulations in 2 CFR Part 200.” As a leading authority on federal grant management for nonprofits, institutions of higher education and state, local and tribal governments she has written over 250 articles on grant management topics featured in LinkedIn, various publications and on the MyFedTrainer.com blog.
She is a sought-after presenter at national conferences sponsored by organizations such as the Grant Professional Association (GPA), National Grant Management Association (NGMA) and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
Lucy is also a highly regarded trainer whose techniques and teaching style come from real-world experience. Having faced many of the same challenges her audiences have endured, Lucy understands that what looks good on paper may not always work in the real world. Because she has been there, she provides people of all professional backgrounds with practical tools to advance their careers and make a bigger difference in the world. She can be reached at [email protected].
- You can hear more about Lucy's journey into grant management in Episode 004
More Resources for Federal Grants
Thanks for checking out the Grant Talks podcast!
In this episode of Grant Talks, we talked about a subject that you may want to know more about:
- How to have better communication between all the people working on grants, and the teams supporting them?
So...as promised I want to share some resources that may help you on YOUR grant journey.
Click below to download a copy of:
Recently I’ve talked with a number of folks who discovered TOO LATE that their grants had spending restrictions that were a complete surprise!
(And some of them were federal grants they had year after year, but this year something changed…)
So, I thought this might be a good time to help you increase communication among your grant teams and avoid those types of BIG “oopsies” that lead to disallowed costs with a Pre-Award checklist!
(Getting everyone on the same page starts before you even receive funding!)
I hope this little short checklist will keep you on the journey to more federal grants and better grant management.
Download and share with your team.
Here's what’s included in this handy checklist:
- Common areas of spending restrictions common to federal grants
- Additional requirements that can get “tucked in” to your Notice of Funding
These resources are FREE for you, and I hope that you will find them valuable on your grant journey.
All the best,
Lucy
P.S. If you’d like to learn more about ways to improve grant management, check out my article at https://blog.myfedtrainer.com/seven-ways-to-improve-grant-management-part-i/
Thanks again for listening in!
