The Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury published an audit on Thursday revealing that Tennessee State University (TSU) management mishandled over five years of funding.
According to the report, “Management’s failure to adequately implement a system of internal control increases the risk of TSU not achieving key objectives related to financial reporting. When management and staff do not take adequate care when preparing financial statements and the accompanying notes to the financial statements, the risk of errors in the financial statements increases. Providing inaccurate financial information can negatively impact the decision-making ability of users of the financial statements.”
The Comptroller’s office alleges TSU failed to properly track funding coming in or out of their bank accounts due to an inaccurate recording of transactions. The same findings regarding record keeping at TSU were found in audits for the past five years by the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury, but, each year, TSU has received suggestions for how to solve the problem, the problem was not resolved.
Auditors say they are concerned that a lack of record keeping could lead to financial instability for TSU if they spend money they don’t have or under-fund specific departments thinking they do not have the funds.
Communications Director for the comptroller’s office, John Dunn, told Fox Chattanooga, “We all know that when you get that statement from the bank at the end of the month, you need reconcile those amounts to make sure they match. And what we were finding at TSU was they weren’t doing that. And they haven’t been doing it correctly for a number of years.”
However, the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury notes they did not find any evidence of funding being misappropriated by TSU. Almost all money was accounted for throughout the investigation provided by the audit.
Another audit will be conducted for TSU next year to ensure that the issue has been resolved.
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Kaitlyn Osteen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Send Kaitlyn tips at [email protected].
Photo “Jason Mumpower” by Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury. Background Photo “Tennessee State University” by Tennessee State University.
