Audit of Managerial Assistance Program shows mistakes

Friday, Sept. 23, 2005 | 10:08 a.m.

A university system audit found several cases of mismanagement during a review of the system's Managerial Assistance Program.

The audit showed misuse of host accounts, purchases that did not follow system policies, a strange transaction in which the MAP program acted as a middle man between two other companies, two incidents in which contracts were granted to system employees and two $10,000 invoices paid for services still not rendered.

The Nevada System of Higher Education established MAP as an industrial extension program to help promote state industries and to foster economic development. During the audit period, July 1, 2002, through June 30, 2004, the program received about $500,000 in taxpayer dollars.

The program brings in about $1.65 million each year in grants and outside contracts, director David Dwulit said following a Board of Regents audit committee on the issue Thursday morning at the Desert Research Institute in Las Vegas.

Several of the issues were logistical problems he has or is continuing to sort out, Dwulit said. For instance, the contracts to system employees were to use expertise within the university system. The exchange where MAP acted as a middle man was to help one client that was downsizing exchange office furniture with another client who was growing.

There was very little money involved in the mistakes MAP officials made and most were procedural, audit committee chairman and Regent Doug Hill said, but the mismanagement was nonetheless "disturbing." Hill said he was especially concerned with the misuse of host accounts, including several lunches involving only MAP employees that went against system policies. During the audit period, MAP officials spent about $6,000 a year from host accounts.

Dwulit said those errors have been corrected and all host account expenditures are now approved at the vice chancellor level. Hill and other regents on the audit asked for Dwulit to report back on MAP's progress at the next meeting.

"I know this is a good program and it is good for the state," Regent Dorothy Gallagher of Elko said. "But you have to clean up your house or it could be detrimental to the state."