Every Heating-Aid Subaward Ohio's Auditor Checked Was Late

Every state that spends federal money above a threshold must file a Single Audit -- an independent annual check, performed for Ohio by the elected state Auditor's office, of whether the state complied with the rules attached to that money.▸ One of those rules is the federal Transparency Act: a state agency that pays out $30,000 or more in federal subaward money must report the payment on the federal SAM.gov transparency system within a month, so Congress, the funding agency, and the public can see where it went. Ohio's Single Audit for the year ended June 30, 2025⧉ found the Ohio Department of Development had not reported a single one of the 45 Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) subawards it tested on time -- $16.9 million in aid meant to help low-income households pay heating bills, weatherize their homes, and cover minor energy-related repairs -- and marked it an explicit repeat of the year before, when 6 of 42 tested subawards came in late.

The finding first appeared, in a milder form, in the audit covering fiscal year 2024⧉: of 42 LIHEAP subaward transactions auditors tested that year, 6 -- $1.6 million of $15 million tested -- were reported late, and none were missing from the system entirely.▸ The Department's corrective action plan promised a fix: an evaluation of its internal controls over FSRS/SAM.gov reporting and cross-training so the reporting 'can be performed by various personnel during vacations or with employee turnover,' completed by June 2025. The next Single Audit -- testing the year through June 30, 2025, the month that deadline fell in -- found the opposite of a fix. Every one of the 45 subawards tested that year, the full $16.9 million, was reported late. Fifteen of those 45 -- $4.2 million -- were not reported to SAM.gov at all, up from zero the year before. Auditors marked it 'Repeat Finding from Prior Audit? Yes.'

A subaward report is how anyone outside the Department -- Congress, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the public -- can verify that the community action agencies and utility programs LIHEAP funds actually received the money the state says it sent.▸ Without it, the $16.9 million exists only in Ohio's own books; no independent public record confirms which of the state's 293 LIHEAP subrecipients got what, or when. The audit states the stakes directly: continued noncompliance risks the Department's federal funding being reduced, taken away, or otherwise sanctioned⧉ by HHS, the agency that funds the program.

A second, separate finding compounds it: on the annual form Ohio files with HHS to report how much LIHEAP money it is carrying forward from prior years -- a figure HHS uses to decide whether unspent state allotments get reallotted to other states -- the Department's Office of Community Assistance told HHS it was holding $4.38 million.▸ Auditors found the correct figure was $10.38 million, an understatement of $5.99 million that auditors attribute to 'management oversight' rather than a stated cause tied to workload.

That carryover finding is not marked a repeat -- but the underlying weakness is not new.▸ The prior year's audit found the Department had made the opposite kind of carryover error, overstating the 2023 program year's carried-over funds by $165,075 on a related HHS report. Two consecutive Single Audits, two different federal forms, two carryover numbers that don't trace to the Department's own supporting documentation -- in opposite directions. A third LIHEAP finding, also marked a repeat, adds a smaller but concrete dollar figure: $167.2 million in LIHEAP funds moved through the Department in FY2025, and $26,107 of it is now a questioned cost -- 12 administrative expenditures obligated 45 to 593 days past their federal deadline, averaging 425 days late, plus $8,470 in funds the Department failed to liquidate on time and never told HHS about.

The Department's newest corrective action plans set three separate completion dates and three separate named officials: Colin Grisier, Senior Manager for Reporting and Compliance, now owns the Transparency Act fix, targeted for June 2026 -- a year past the date the Department first promised it.▸ Sherita Montgomery, Financial Manager of Accounting & Reporting, owns the carryover-reporting fix, targeted for May 2026; she was also the named contact on the broken 2025 promise for Transparency Act reporting the year before. Daniel Schreiber, Deputy Chief of Budget, owns the period-of-performance fix, targeted for June 2026. None of these commitments has been independently tested yet. Ohio's next Single Audit, covering July 2025 through June 2026, is not due until roughly March 2027 -- the first point an auditor, rather than the Department itself, checks whether any of the three held.