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Auditors Say NIU Lost Track Of $322K Of Equipment

State auditors recently released the latest compliance examination for Northern Illinois University.  Among the findings: The University failed to comply with requirements for tracking its property and equipment.

What exactly does that mean?

NIU could not locate 244 items -- valued at a total of $322,539 -- purchased during the current as well as past fiscal years. They include about 57 computers, servers, CPUs, and other electronic storage devices.

Al Phillips, Vice President of Administration and Finance at NIU, says the university tags and tracks a total of about 60,000 items of equipment.

"Any loss of equipment is not acceptable," he said. "In many cases, when you’re dealing with computers -- which are items that typically move from office to office, or are replaced more frequently than say tables and chairs or desks -- there are paperwork issues. There are loss of the transfer documents, and so it’s always a challenge."

He says the university is getting ready to undertake a re-engineering effort to cut down on lost equipment.

Travel Reimbursement

Another finding involved improper reimbursement of an employee in Fiscal Year 2014. Auditors found that, during a test of travel expenditures, $31,945 was reimbursed to an employee who should not have received the money because the travel was from his home to the official headquarters.

The finding points out that an agreement to recoup those costs wasn't reached until Fiscal 2016. The employee returned $17,515 (or 55%) of the travel costs to the University. Phillips says that is all NIU can expect to see.

"To try to receive any more of that would have cost far more than we would have ever received in return," he said. "and would've taken a lot more time, effort, man hours, people, [and] resources. And so it was agreed that this was the best way we could bring this to conclusion."

Overall, Phillips says the financial and compliance examinations indicate the university is working efficiently.

"Many of these can be fixed very easily," he said, "Some of these are internal control issues where we just need to ensure that we have sufficient oversight and that we are checking all of our numbers."

This week's compliance audit follows the release of the financial audit from the Office of the Illinois Auditor General which covers the year ended June 30, 2015. 

Jenna Dooley has spent her professional career in public radio. She is a graduate of Northern Illinois University and the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois - Springfield. She returned to Northern Public Radio in DeKalb after several years hosting Morning Edition at WUIS-FM in Springfield. She is a former "Newsfinder of the Year" from the Illinois Associated Press and recipient of NIU's Donald R. Grubb Journalism Alumni Award. She is an active member of the Illinois News Broadcasters Association and an adjunct instructor at NIU.
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