ILEAS has received a notice from the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that a Desk Review of ILEAS' FY18 audit was conducted. The Inspector General's review of ILEAS found no quality financial issues whatsoever. While this may not sound that important, it actually is great news for ILEAS.
Every Federal grantee receiving $750,000 or more in a fiscal year must submit to what is called an annual Single Audit. Martin Hood LLC, an independent auditing firm, conducts annual Single Audits of ILEAS and the ILEAS Foundation. They inspect and extensively review policies, documents, cash flow, grants, and fiscal management procedures to ensure that ILEAS is following accepted accounting procedures and is efficiently and effectively managing the grant funds appropriately. Once they complete their audit, they submit the resulting report to the ILEAS Governing Board, the State of Illinois and the Federal government. ILEAS always receives good audit results. Our fiscal staff are some of the best around when it comes to grant tracking and management.
However, there is another level of audit and that is called the Desk Review. Every year the Homeland Security Office of Inspector General selects a limited number of Single Audits and inspecting them to ensure that both the auditor and the audited agency are meeting standards. The letter that ILEAS received from the Inspector General indicated that the audit report, "contains no quality issues or only minor issues that do not require corrective action," for that year. According to staff at IEMA, they are unaware of any other State of Illinois grantee being selected, let alone receiving a great review. Additionally, the Inspector General will inform other Federal agencies about the results of their Desk Review of ILEAS. This is important because ILEAS does have grants from other Federal agencies (for example the NARCAN grants from Health and Human Services).
While financial audits are not the most exciting thing that ILEAS does, it is one of the most important. State and Federal agencies are more likely to provide grants to agencies that are great stewards of the money. ILEAS provides multiple millions of dollars to local law enforcement every year largely in part because we manage the money well. Congratulations to the ILEAS financial and program staff who manage the money!