K5: Federal Project Incident Reporting | Onondaga Community College

Responsibility for Maintenance: Financial Services; Academic Affairs; Institutional Planning, Assessment & Research

I. Policy Statement

As a recipient of federal grant awards, OCC is required to report and document allegations, suspicions, and complaints involving fraud, misfeasance, nonfeasance, or malfeasance, misapplication of funds, gross mismanagement and misconduct, criminal activity, waste and program abuse impacting programs supported by a federal award; follow procedures required by applicable federal agencies for filing such a report; and inform employees, staff, and sub-recipients of their duty to submit such reports immediately through the appropriate incident reporting system.

Employees, staff and sub-recipients of federal awards

Employees, staff, and sub-recipients must be made aware of their duty to report any suspected issue involving fraud, misfeasance, nonfeasance, or malfeasance, misapplication of funds, gross mismanagement and misconduct, criminal activity, waste and program abuse impacting programs supported by a federal award, as well as the correct procedure for filing such a report at least annually.

Vendors and subcontractors supported by federal awards

Vendors and subcontractors made aware of their duty to report any suspected issue involving fraud, misfeasance, nonfeasance, or malfeasance, misapplication of funds, gross mismanagement and misconduct, criminal activity, waste and program abuse impacting programs supported by a federal award, as well as the correct procedure for filing such a report as part of their contractual obligations with the College.

College Reporting Policy

While highly encouraged, the College may not make internal reporting of such issues a condition of reporting suspected issues to a federal agency. Note: The College is not expected to be able to determine whether the allegations or suspicions are true or not before reporting them to the appropriate OIG. There must not be any delay reporting such allegations or suspicions while the College conducts its own investigation. A report must be filed in response to suspicions of wrongdoing. The responsibility is to report these events, and not determine whether they are true or not.

II. Reason for Policy

This policy complies with the Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (commonly called "Uniform Guidance") – a "government-wide framework for grants management" – is an authoritative set of rules and requirements for Federal awards that synthesizes and supersedes guidance from earlier OMB circulars. A core tenant of Uniform Guidance is to guard against the risk of waste, and misuse of Federal funds. The Incident Reporting requirement ensures that employees, vendors, subcontractors and sub-recipients of federal grants and awards are aware of their responsibility to be good stewards of public funds.

III. Applicability of the Policy

This policy applies to projects, employees, vendors, and sub-recipients supported directly or indirectly by federal funds. Federal awards never lose their identity; no matter how many agencies, states, and local programs federal awards pass through, the Uniform Guidance standard still applies.

IV. Related Documents/Forms

2 CFR Part 200, the Uniform Administrative Requirements; Cost Principles, & Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (known as the “Uniform Guidance”)
CFR 200 § 200.113 Mandatory disclosures
2 CFR 2900 (DOL Exceptions)
US Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration’s Training and Employment Guidance Letter (TEGL) No. 02-12
Incident Report (IR) (OIG 1-156): This is the primary form for reporting instances of fraud, misapplication of funds, gross mismanagement, and any other incidents of known or suspected criminal or other serious activities. The OIG 1-156 may also be used to provide interim and final reports.

IV. Contacts

Office Name	Title or Position	Telephone Number	Email/URL
Financial Services	Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer	(315) 498-2268	m.r.manning@sunyocc.edu
Academic Affairs		(315) 498-2594	provost@sunyocc.edu
Institutional Planning, Assessment & Research	Vice President	(315) 498-2500	awuaha@sunyocc.edu
Compliance & Auxiliary Services	Director	(315) 498-2712	delanda@sunyocc.edu

V. Definitions

Fraud, Misfeasance, Nonfeasance or Malfeasance	Any alleged deliberate action that may be in violation of Federal statutes and regulations. This category includes, but is not limited to, indications of bribery, forgery, extortion, embezzlement, theft of participant checks, kickbacks from participants or contractors, intentional payments to a contractor without the expectation of receiving services, payments to ghost enrollees, misuse of appropriated funds, and misrepresenting information in official reports, such as filing false claims, time and attendance reporting or improper travel payments.
Gross mismanagement	Actions or situations arising out of management ineptitude or oversight and leading to a major violation of the legislative process, regulations, or contract/grant provisions. This includes but is not limited to un-auditable records, unsupported costs, highly inaccurate fiscal reports or program reports, payroll discrepancies, payroll deductions not paid to the IRS, and lack of good internal control procedures.
Misapplication of Funds	Any deliberate use of funds, assets, or property not authorized or provided for by legislation or regulations, grants or contracts. This includes but is not limited to nepotism, political patronage, use of participants for political activity, ineligible enrollees, conflict of interest, failure to report income from federal funds, violation of contract/grant procedures, and the use of federal funds for other-than-specified purposes.
Waste and Program Abuse	While not a criminal act, these incidents are to be reported in the same manner as the more obvious instances of criminal conduct.
Employee or Participant Misconduct	Actions occurring during or outside work hours that reflect negatively on the federal agency or its mission including, but not limited to: conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict of interest involving outside employment, business and professional activities; the receipt or giving of gifts, fees, entertainment, and favors; misuse of Federal property; and, misuse of official information and such other activities as might adversely affect the confidence of the public in the integrity of the government (See 29 CFR Part O; 5 CFR Parts 2635 and 5201) as well as serious violations of Federal and state laws. Even though these latter activities may not rise to the level of criminal acts, they are nevertheless incidents that are reported in the same manner as the more obvious instances of criminal conduct.

VI. Procedure

The process of reporting differs across federal agencies and awards. Select the appropriate process below to report allegations, suspicions, and complaints of waste and misuse of Federal funds.

USDOL ETA Awards

The Department of Labor's Incident Reporting System uses the DOL Incident Report Form DL 1-156 which is available online at the dol.gov website and in TEGL 2-12. This form and its instructions can be found in TEGL 2-12. Send the DL 1-156 to the following address:
- Submit copies to OIG and ETA. Documenting and reporting these incidents consists of recording them on the form DL 1-156 and submitting them to OIG and ETA.
- If imminent health or safety concerns or imminent loss of funds exceeding $50,000:
  - When the threat is immediately imminent or involves a substantial amount of funds, you must report this to OIG even more quickly. Where imminent health or safety concerns exist and/or imminent loss of funds exceeds $50,000, they must be reported to the OIG and ETA immediately by telephone followed by a written Incident Report (IR) no later than one working day.
Recipients and sub-recipients are also required to report fraud and other criminal acts to ETA or the pass-through entity, as appropriate, in accordance with the new Uniform Guidance requirement on mandatory disclosure at 200.113.
The ETA OIG operates a hotline phone number where people can report anything and everything that they find to be suspicious. Use this number to report imminent threats. Those numbers are:
- DOL Hotline - Office of Inspector General 1-800-347-3756 or (202) 693-6999
If mailing the report, send the DL 1-156 to the following address: Complaints Analysis Office, DOL Office of Inspector General, Room S5506, 200 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20210 or to the corresponding Regional Inspector General for Investigations with a copy simultaneously provided to ETA.
Incidents can be reported and channeled through a state or local system first, before the report is sent to OIG, if there are procedures set up to do so, and if the incident does not pose an immediate or substantial monetary threat. But, in all cases, DOL must be notified at the same time.

VII. Responsibilities

Compliance, Monitoring & Review

Administration and Compliance and Finance divisions are responsible for administration of this policy and related procedures.
Project directors for federal awards shall submit updates to the procedure guide as needed to align the procedure with federal project technical assistance requirements, and project reporting requirements.
Responsibilities for actions under this procedure are detailed throughout this document.
Administration and Compliance and Finance divisions must maintain all records relevant to administering this policy and procedure in the master compliance log and share drive, or a recognized College record keeping system. The recorder should include the date of training, and a list of attendees.
Reporting: Failure to make required disclosures can result in any of the remedies described in §200.338. Remedies for noncompliance, including suspension or debarment. (See also 2 CFR part 180 and 31 U.S.C. 3321).

Approved by the Board of Trustees January 23, 2018