Audit of the Community Day Care Center of Lawrence, Inc. Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

An overview of the purpose and process of auditing the Community Day Care Center of Lawrence, Inc.

Overview

In accordance with Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the Massachusetts General Laws, the Office of the State Auditor has conducted a performance audit of certain activities of Community Day Care Center of Lawrence, Inc. (CDCCL) for the period July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2019.

We conducted this performance audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objective.

Below is our audit objective, indicating the question we intended our audit to answer and the conclusion we reached regarding the objective.

Objective	Conclusion
Did CDCCL determine eligibility for subsidized childcare in accordance with Sections 10.03 and 10.04 of Title 606 of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations and enter eligibility information in the childcare financial assistance application maintained by the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC)?	Yes

 

To achieve our audit objective, we gained an understanding of the internal controls we determined to be relevant to our audit objective by reviewing applicable regulations and agency policies and procedures, as well as conducting interviews with CDCCL’s staff and management. We evaluated the design and implementation, and tested the operating effectiveness, of controls over eligibility for subsidized childcare and entry of information in the Child Care Financial Assistance (CCFA) database application.⁵

Additionally, we performed the procedures described below.

Subsidized Childcare

To determine eligibility to receive subsidized childcare, we selected a statistical sample of 60 children from a population of 3,174 enrollees during the audit period. We selected the sample with a 95% confidence level and a 10% tolerable error rate, with an expected error rate of zero. We reviewed eligibility documentation that parents must submit when applying for subsidized childcare, such as photo identification, address information, children’s birth certificates, service need information, and proof of income. We determined the applicants’ monthly incomes and family sizes. We also determined whether the applicants made any copayments for subsidized childcare by referring to EEC’s Parent Co-Payment Table. We compared our results to CDCCL’s eligibility determinations and then traced eligible applicants’ information (service need, income, and children’s and parents’ names and ages) to CCFA.

Data Reliability Assessment

CDCCL uses EZCare childcare management software to catalog family and income information about childcare applicants. To assess the reliability of eligibility data in EZCare, we reviewed selected system control policies (i.e., access controls, configuration management, contingency planning, and segregation of duties) for the audit period. We also performed the following tests:

• We selected 10 childcare clients from EZCare and determined whether the information (program type, billing type, slot number, start date, and parents’ and children’s names) in EZCare matched hardcopy childcare files.
• We selected 10 hardcopy childcare files and traced the program type, billing type, slot number, start date, and parents’ and children’s names to EZCare.

Based on our audit work, we determined that the data obtained from EZCare were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our audit work.

5.     CCFA is maintained by EEC and used to document family eligibility, track child attendance, and assist childcare providers with submitting requests for reimbursement.

Date published:	April 3, 2020