Baton Rouge Community College did not “maintain adequate controls over payroll processing” for the 2018-2019 fiscal year, according to a Louisiana Legislative Auditor report released Monday morning.
In several tests of payroll records, the Legislative Auditor found that multiple employees had been mispaid—either overpaid or underpaid for hours worked. Certain timesheets were also found to be approved more than 100 days after the check date.
The noted issues increase the risk for errors or fraud, the report reads.
The school also failed to make proper notifications of misappropriated assets, as is required by state law, according to the report. BRCC management knew of “suspected misappropriations” as early as February but didn’t report it until November.
In response to the report, BRCC Interim Chancellor Willie Smith Sr. writes that the school management concurred with the findings related to payroll and that a plan has been established to address those issues.
Going forward, chief human resources officer Annette Arboneaux will implement an internal auditing process before each payroll is finalized. Also, Arboneaux will develop a set of standard operating procedures to ensure staff continually follow those procedurally correct operations. The Human Resource Department is implementing a cross-training initiative to address the payroll issues by the end of March.
The school did not agree, however, that there had been a misappropriation of BRCC assets and argues that the claim the school knew of an instance of misappropriation in February and didn’t report it until November is inaccurate.
“The conclusion of any investigated behavior has not been disclosed to the college and therefore the college does not have knowledge of misappropriated funds or assets,” Smith writes.
The audit looked at the college’s finances from July 2018 through June 2019. Read the full report.
