Auditor’’s report reveals disturbing accounting trends in Illinois public university system

the overall trend indicates that The Illinois public university system is getting worse in complying with state and federal laws, leaving the system vulnerable to future cases of public corruption.

It has been a tough few years for the public university system in Illinois. Many of the state’s public universities have suffered reputational damage from cases of public corruption and questionable policymaking.

For example, Illinois State University gave private workers access to public pensions. The University of Illinois had an admissions clout scandal. Chicago State University gave ineligible students state financial aid packages. A Southern Illinois University building contractor was convicted of fraud. A group of Northern Illinois University employees sold university scrap metal to fund office parties.

You would think the state’s public university system would be quick to implement fixes to these types of problems, many of which were identified by the Illinois’s Auditor General over the past several years.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

The Illinois Auditor General’s office conducts annual audits of the statewide public university system and publishes the reports on each university’s website in compliance with recognized government accounting standards, as well as federal and state law.

The Illinois Auditor General annually releases audits on each of the nine university systems in Illinois. The results show that, overall, public universities in Illinois have failed to follow the rules – but even worse, they haven’t received the message to clean up their act from past audits.

In fact, the overall trend indicates that the Illinois public university system is getting worse in complying with state and federal laws, leaving the system vulnerable to future cases of public corruption.

Particularly alarming in these reports was the fact that 64 of the compliance findings – nearly 50 percent – were repeats from previous audits, and the state university system had six more compliance findings overall than previous audits. While that is only a 4 percent increase in compliance findings overall, it’s alarming because universities are repeating compliance mistakes previously identified by the Auditor General’s office.

Here’s a look at the overall findings for each university.

For the most recently audited year, the Illinois Auditor General found state universities had 129 various compliance issues.

Here’s a sample of some of the Auditor General’s findings in the most recent audit for each institution:

Chicago State University maintained deposits totaling $18,633,626 in non-FDIC insured accounts without adequate deposit insurance, despite the State Finance Act requiring the university to obtain a bond or pledged security when a deposit exceeds the federal deposit insurance coverage levels.

Eastern Illinois University was found to be exercising insufficient internal control over the university’s vehicles, including failure to maintain odometer readings, failure to have a service or repair policy in place and failure to update the operable vehicle listing accurately.

Governors State University failed to comply with required contracting procedures on 14 contracts totaling more than $4 million.

Illinois State University improperly recognized revenue by not remitting proceeds from the sale of scrap metal, totaling $138,598, to the Department of Central Management Services.

Northeastern Illinois University failed to identify $26,157 in Title IV aid that should have been refunded to the U.S. Department of Education.

Northern Illinois University and Southern Illinois University did not have employees fill out time sheets as required by the State Officials and Employees Ethics Act.

The University of Illinois had inadequate procedures to remove inactive employees from the payroll system, and $72,039 was paid to a single terminated employee over the course of four years.

Western Illinois University did not ensure that contractors selected, on six of nine construction contracts tested, adequately complied with the bidder requirements of the Illinois Procurement Code.

The results of the Illinois Auditor General’s reports should be alarming to taxpayers.

If officials within the state’s university system were taking the Auditor General’s reports seriously, the number of compliance findings would be shrinking, especially in the area of repeat offenses.

The Illinois university system can and must do better.