The state Auditor’s Office issued two findings against Island County this month for errors in the way that it kept track of COVID relief fund grants in 2020.

The problems didn’t result in any loss of funding and the county’s processes were fixed, the report states.

Administering pandemic-related grants was a big job for the county. The county received $6.4 million in CARES Act grants and an additional $3.1 million for COVID grant housing assistance in 2020 alone. Much of that money flowed through the county to different “subrecipients,” which were mainly businesses and nonprofit organizations.

Commissioner Jill Johnson pointed out that many businesses were shuttered and the community was desperate for help in the midst of the pandemic.

“There was a lot of pressure on staff to push out these funds as fast as we could,” she said.

The auditor’s “financial statements and federal single audit report” only covers the year 2020.

The audit explains that the county established a control processes to comply with financial reporting requirements for the pandemic-related grants the county received. Program managers within the county were designated and trained in procedures for reimbursements, but they “did not follow the procedures for ensuring that they only claimed eligible expenditures for their department.”

Also, the person in the central oversight position did not identify the duplicate expenditures but “only relied on information the program managers submitted without confirming the accuracy and completeness of reimbursement support.”

As a result, reimbursements included $1.42 million in duplicate claims.

The state Department of Commerce, which was administering the grants, allowed the county to replace the duplicates with 2021 expenditures so there was no loss of funding.

In addition, the audit found that the county wasn’t adequately monitoring subrecipients to ensure that they were seeking grant reimbursements for allowable costs.

In its response in the audit report, the county explained that changes in grant management have been implemented county-wide to avoid duplications in the future.