FRANKFORT, KY (8-8-08) On Friday, State Auditor Crit Luallen released a series of performance audits on 31 adult education programs funded by the Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) with grants totaling $11.6 million in the 2007 fiscal year.

This is the fourth consecutive year that Luallen's Office was requested by CPE to audit its adult education grant recipients across the Commonwealth. Each year, CPE selects nearly 25 percent of its programs to be audited. The programs are selected on a rotating basis. CPE began appropriating funds for these audits in 2000.

Overall, the grant recipients appear to be managing their grant money within the parameters established by CPE, according to the audit summary.

Auditors examined 31 adult education programs within the 29 counties selected by CPE. These counties provided adult education services to 22,380 students in 2007.

The counties include: Adair, Barren, Bath, Bullitt, Butler, Caldwell, Campbell, Casey, Christian, Clay, Cumberland, Daviess, Franklin, Garrard, Grant, Harlan, Hopkins, Kenton, Larue, Lawrence, McCreary, Muhlenberg, Nicholas, Ohio, Pike, Whitley and Woodford. Hardin and Jefferson counties had two programs receiving grant money from CPE. To view the individual program audits, visit www.auditor.ky.gov.

Of the 31 programs audited, auditors found that five programs had no reportable exceptions.

Four programs had disallowed costs totaling $10,540, which is 0.09 percent of the total grant dollars audited. The disallowed costs were mainly due to a lack of documentation for grant expenditures, while some of the expenditures did not comply with the grant agreements.

In the other 22 programs, auditors identified at least one audit exception that did not result in disallowed costs. These exceptions range from a lack of local oversight regarding student eligibility to a failure to keep accurate records on staff professional development requirements.

"The overall management and administration of the CPE grants by the local adult education programs seems to be in good standing based on our audits," Luallen said.

To determine the significance and frequency of the audit exceptions, auditors compiled a summary of the exceptions, which was sent to CPE along with recommendations on how CPE can strengthen its administrative support to local adult education programs. For each exception, auditors also made recommendations on how the local programs could improve their administrative oversight.

In 2007, CPE awarded $28 million in all 120 counties to adult education programs administered by school systems, community and technical colleges, community-based organizations, educational cooperatives, universities and local governments.

In 2000, CPE was given the role of funding and monitoring Kentucky's adult education programs as part of the Kentucky Adult Education Act passed by lawmakers. The 2000 initiative increased funding for adult education to improve the educational status of adult Kentuckians who lack a high school diploma, function at low levels of literacy or want to learn English.