New report reveals North Carolina community college issued more than $10M in checks with bad signatures

(The Center Square) – Roanoke-Chowan Community College issued more than $10 million in checks with invalid signatures and overpaid employees more than $45,000, according to a recent investigative report by the Office of the State Auditor.

The office received 15 allegations of operational mismanagement by Roanoke-Chowan Community College officials.

State auditors found the college’s administration issued 2,644 checks from August 2019 to August 2020, totaling more than $10.3 million, with digital signatures of the former president and former controller, who no longer were employed by the college. Auditors said the error increased the risk of fraud for the college.

“The checks with invalid signatures were issued and not detected because the college did not have policies and procedures in place to detect that the checks contained signatures of former employees,” the state auditor’s office wrote.

The school used digital signatures to sign checks after the checks were approved by the controller. Policy requires the current president and chief financial officer’s signatures to be on checks. It was the responsibility of the chief financial officer to update the digital signatures to reflect the names of the current administration. However, the chief financial officer position was vacant at the time.

The auditor’s office said the issues could have been avoided if the interim president at the time had filled the position and had policies and assessments in place to avoid errors and examine risks. It recommended the Roanoke-Chowan Community College Board of Trustees oversee the president’s operational roles and management of the college.

The auditors also discovered the college overpaid employees by $45,008 and submitted retirement contributions after deadlines, resulting in $3,564 in penalties.

Auditors said three employees received pay simultaneously for two positions: their former position and their current position. The employees were not required to return the duplicate payments.

The auditor’s office said both issues also were caused by a lack of oversight by the former interim president.

Current Roanoke-Chowan Community College President Murray Williams agreed with the audit findings and said the college already has taken “corrective actions” to address the issues.

Human resources is using approval forms for all employee-related actions to avoid errors, Williams said. She also agreed to make sure key positions in the college are filled in a timely manner.

The investigative report, which was released last week, was the second report in a month that showed a lack of oversight by college officials.

An audit report released July 9 showed the community college’s administration failed to reconcile payroll changes and bank accounts and to properly maintain financial and personnel records. As a result, the Ahoskie-based community college issued unsupported pay increases to employees and was late with federal reimbursement requests. The college also had to contact outside consultants to help fix its financial records.

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