An audit of the Unversity of Louisiana at Lafayette's procedures turned up issues that were found last year and the year before, but haven't been corrected.
The audit also found one issue, having to do with student information security, had been addressed.
If you want to read the full report, with all the details of the findings as well as the full response from UL's management, scroll down.
For the second year in a row, auditors looking at certain procedures at UL found that the university did not bill for federal, state, local and non-governmental grants and contracts in a timely manner. The billing didn't meet contract terms or internal policy, auditors found.
From a sample of 32 grants and contract revenue transactions, auditors found that five of them were billed at least 72 days but as many as 269 days late.
"Individual contracts and agreements require UL Lafayette to submit billings and supporting information within a specific time period," the audit report explains. "Additionally, UL Lafayette’s billing policies require that expenditure activity for federal, state, local and nongovernmental awards issued to UL Lafayette be reviewed for billing on a monthly basis. Failure to bill timely causes noncompliance with the contract, agreement and/or internal policy. Additionally, untimely billing increases the risk that receivable accounts could become uncollectable."
In their response, UL's management concurred with the finding. The reason for the issue is staffing, the response states. Over the past several years, UL has had staffing shortages that have created challenges to completing the monthly reviews that should be done, the response states. But they've now hired more staff and are currently training them, and management says they're committed to fixing this issue.
For the third consecutive year, auditors found UL didn't have adequate controls in place to make sure that personnel expenses and efforts that were charged to federal Research and Development awards were accurate, and failed to adequately monitor subrecipients of some of these programs.
Auditors pulled 25 of more than 28,000 expenses charged to these grants, and found that, for five of them, UL Lafayette was unable to provide documentation to show that personnel related expenses, totaling $612, were supported by time and effort certifications to ensure the accuracy of budget estimates charged to federal awards as required by federal regulations.
Auditors also looked at records related to 20 key personnel assigned to some of the awards, and found that for most of them, 13, UL Lafayette was unable to provide documentation that the key personnel complied with the effort required by the grant award.
"UL Lafayette noted in its prior-year corrective action plan and in a draft effort reporting policy that certifications for employees charging time to federal awards would be required quarterly. For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, certifications were only requested in July 2023, after the fiscal year end, and were required to be returned within 30 days. Annual certifications are not sufficient to timely detect changes in key personnel effort and ensure prior approvals are obtained when applicable," the audit report states.
In their response, UL management again concurred with the findings. They wrote that the draft policy has been in place, but because of current "operational capacity" they're going to use an annual review. They also outlined several procedures that are being put in place to enhance internal controls, certify time and effort, and monitor and track changes. They've also contracted to use a new certification module that is expected to be tested this year and go live next year.
For the subrecipients, auditors looked at seven of the 43 subawards, and found that for five of those UL could not provide evidence that the financial and performance reports required by the subaward agreement were obtained and reviewed by UL Lafayette. Two of those also didn't include some details required by federal regulations, the report states.
In their response, UL management concurred with the findings. They said the university is tightening the procedure of collecting reports, and also doing some refresher training with employees, to correct these issues.
The prior-year finding that determined the university wasn't compliant with a federal law about student information security was resolved, auditors found.
Here's the audit:
