COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber has released the annual audit of spending for the fiscal year 2022, which identified 24 findings and questioned costs totaling $2.85 million among seven Ohio state agencies administering federally funded programs.
The State of Ohio Single Audit is required under federal law to ensure that federal funds allocated to Ohio are spent appropriately by state agencies. For the fiscal year 2022, Ohio administered 353 federal programs from 25 federal agencies, with total spending of $46.8 billion.
Nearly $29.9 billion from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services went to Ohio’s Medicaid programs, providing medical care and services for lower-income residents, older adults, individuals with disabilities, pregnant women, infants and children, and others. Another $6.6 billion came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, primarily for assistance related to food and nutrition programs.
The audit report highlighted questioned costs related to Medicaid, regular and pandemic unemployment insurance, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) totaling $2,852,346. These included:
- Nearly $2.2 million was attributed to insufficient documentation that reviews or actions were taken as a result of cross matches of death and prison incarceration records to ensure pandemic unemployment benefits were paid to eligible recipients.
- $86,076 in questioned pandemic unemployment payments, including duplicate payments, payments exceeding maximum amounts, and payments to ineligible recipients.
- $591,519 Medicaid benefits paid to ineligible recipients or related to improper capitation payments to managed care providers.
- $3,629 in incorrectly issued SNAP benefits.
The audit report included two findings for recovery against state employees, one of which had not yet been repaid, totaling $17,083.
Despite the findings, the total number of findings was the lowest it’s been in six years, down from 25 findings in FY2021, 38 in FY2020, and 33 in FY2019.
