October 29, 2009
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News: UN Audit Reveals CC Abuse
In a news conference on Thursday, another state audit uncovers questionable credit card activities at a prominent institution. State Nebraska's State Auditor Mike Foley released the results of a recent audit which indicates that personnel from the University of Nebraska abused the university's credit cards to purchase more than $283,000 in first class airline tickets. According to the report, the university's employees also purchased other high ticket items such as a Borsheims' fountain pen worth $628 and a Nintendo Wii game worth $250. Foley also stated that there were a several concerns evident in various departments of the university that displayed a lack of the university's control over credit card spending. Foley indicated that the concerns were "serious"; however, there was nothing that indicated anything should be turned over to the State's Attorney for further investigation.
The University of Nebraska issues employees with Visa credit cards known as P-cards to make business related purchases from approved vendors. In order to eliminate the time consuming and labor intensive system of processing invoices by hand and issuing checks, the university adopted the P-card system. The purchase policy sets a dollar limit on each purchase transaction and must be reviewed by a second individual. The audit revealed a number of credit card transactions that did not meet these guidelines. In addition to the previously mentioned items, other questionable transactions included: the purchase of a $15,000 first class airline ticket to China; gift cards; cash advances; and, a series of small transactions to get around the dollar limit.
Foley stated that he was pleased with the cooperation he received from the University of Nebraska's Board of Regents audit committee. Regent Jim McClurg, the committee's chairman, stated that the committee was thankful for information they received from the audit review because it provided the committee with identifiable areas for improvement to reduce risk and credit card abuse.” The university plans to review the programs procedures and guidelines as well as strengthen controls in holding user accountability and compliance.