Southern University System Files Annual Fiscal Report Late

The Southern University System was nearly two months late in filing its annual fiscal report with the state Division of Administration, and the report contained numerous errors and omissions when it was filed, according to a report issued Monday by Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera.

The financial statement audit said Southern’s deadline for submitting its financial statement was September 19, 2014, but university officials did not submit it until November 17 following two deadline extensions, according to the report. Adhering to the original deadline is important to ensure that the state’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) of all agencies is issued by December 31, the report said.

Besides being filed late, the state auditor’s report said, the Southern system “did not provide timely information to auditors, thereby jeopardizing the timely issuance” of the state’s annual financial report.

The report pointed out that when Southern officials filed the financial report it “contained numerous errors and omissions, further delaying the completion of the (Southern) System’s audit.” The report said the errors involved “misclassifications and omissions” of data. The accuracy of the Southern system’s annual fiscal report is important both for the accuracy of the system’s audit report and also for the state’s CAFR.

“During our audit work, we experienced numerous delays obtaining information, with more than one-third of our audit requests taking more than two weeks to fulfill and some taking more than three months,” financial auditors wrote.

The report said Southern has claimed that “it had major transition in leadership and management roles, turnover and vacancies in key financial management positions, technical difficulties, and long-term, unplanned absences of several key employees that contributed to a delay in completion” of the annual fiscal report.

The state auditor’s office recommended that the university system “take appropriate measures to ensure it has adequate accounting personnel available for next year’s AFR (annual fiscal report) compilation. We further recommend that the System hold its staff accountable for responding to audit requests in a timely manner.”