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LCCC receives clean audit, has room for improvement [Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Cheyenne](Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (Cheyenne, WY) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oct. 20--CHEYENNE -- Though there are some things to fix, the financial audit for Laramie County Community College was clean this year. Members of the LCCC Board of Trustees heard a report on the draft of the audit at their meeting Wednesday. "Both management and our firm have completed their review of the final audit and footnotes," said accountant Wayne Herr with McGee, Hearne & Paiz, LLP. "We are ready to go pending approval by the trustees to move forward." The point of offering a review of the audit draft is in case any changes are suggested, he said. "It is an unmodified, or clean, opinion, which means that in our opinion the financial statements are fairly presented in all material respects," he said. The audit looked at fiscal statements and "business-type" activities at the college for the fiscal years ending in June 2013 and 2014, according to audit information. It also looked at records from the Laramie County Community College Foundation for 2012 and 2013. A single audit was done specifically looking at federal awards, Herr said. That process looked specifically at three areas, based on specific guidelines. "This year, we audited three programs. We audited the student financial aid cluster, the job training program and the career and technical education program," he said. "We do not have any findings on those last two, (but) we did have findings related to student financial aid." The items found were not at the highest level of seriousness but do need to be fixed, he said. The two areas the college needs to address relate to how student information is reported in student financial aid, he said. How the date for when students graduate from LCCC was reported was not being handled correctly, Herr said. When students have to start repaying federal school loans can be determined by the graduation date. "In the registrar's office, they were using the student's graduation date as the date they finished classes, rather than the date they finished finals," he said. "It's not a lot of time, but when a student may have to go into repaying their loan, every day counts." Additionally, determining the last day for a student who dropped out was not being handled consistently, he said. "One of the issues there is there wasn't a clear policy on how to determine that," he said. An internal control established by the college could fix both issues, Herr said. LCCC President Joe Schaffer said the concerns with how some student records are reported was not a surprise. "We knew full well that we had work to do in the records area," he said. "In fact, one of the priorities for student services was getting into the records, so it's not surprising that we have some of these inconsistencies." The college has started working to clear up student data, he said. The findings will help guide the college's efforts moving forward with the work. "My understanding is that the registrar and student services are already looking at how we correct some of these issues," Schaffer said. "The reporting date for graduation is actually a fairly simple change and one we can do right away." The trustees had several questions about the items, including if there were more errors found in a fall semester versus a later spring semester. Trustee Kevin Kilty asked if the sample size of 40 students was enough to give an accurate representation and if a few errors could skew the results of a limited sample. Within the sample size, four mistakes were found regarding how graduation date was reported, Herr said. "One error in your sample can be considered isolated. Two of them, and it's no longer isolated," he said. "They're not real happy with the one, either." ___ (c)2014 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (Cheyenne, Wyo.) Visit Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (Cheyenne, Wyo.) at www.wyomingnews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |