HARTFORD, Conn. — State auditors found a dozen issues with UConn Health's payroll and record-keeping practices in their latest report, with half of those issues being repeat notices.
The Connecticut Auditors of Public Accounts dove into UConn Health Center's records for the fiscal years ending June 30, 2021 and 2022. Many issues found in previous audits were repeated and found to be unresolved.
Repeat findings include:
- Lack of clarity in contracts when it comes to offering incentive payments to faculty in the School of Dental Medicine. Auditors found these payments totaled over $1.1 million between five selected faculty members.
- Lack of documentation and manager approval on hiring temp non-faculty employees, with auditors warning it could lead to a higher risk of adding these employees to UConn Health's special payroll "without being properly vetted."
- Lack of timesheet approval due to not always following procedures. This finding was found in two previous audits for fiscal years ending June 30, 2017, through 2020.
- Starting salaries for managers were higher than the established pay range. UConn Health said it revised this issue by revising and posting updated salary ranges on May 1, 2023.
- The institution's compensatory time-tracking system "made it difficult" to properly oversee the payment of compensatory time that lines up with its policy. This issue was reported as far back as the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013. UConn Health said new protocols have since been put in place to prevent this from happening again.
- UConn Health listed over 12,000 items as controllable property. UConn Health could not find 1,339 of them during physical inspections, auditors found 1,548 assets had incomplete or missing purchasing information, and 82 items that cost $5,000 or more totaled over $3 million. UConn Health said part of the issue came from expanding the need for controllable assets during the pandemic while quickly shifting to remote working options.
New issues found in the latest audit include:
- A lack of control over software inventory records, which could lead to licensing and copyright violations for the computer programs and risks improper use of the software.
- Not having an up-to-date and regularly tested technology disaster recovery plan. Auditors found that UConn Health has a disaster recovery plan, but has not been formally and fully tested due to excessive expenses delaying the test for several years.
- At least one person - a department director - working from home without an official telecommuting agreement on file, per UConn Health's policies
- Established procedures for using purchasing cards were not being followed, which leaves uncertainty on whether necessary purchases are being made. UConn Health is also tax-exempt but paid tax in 14 out of 600 audited transitions.
- Multiple cash receipts for one training resident were four to 17 days later than the invoice date. UConn Health did not assess a fee for the late payments. Information was missing from 12 out of 24 remittance advices.
- Short staffing and inability to fill available positions led to three employees earning between 102% and 133% of their normal salaries in overtime, and four employees entered overtime hours ranging between 87.50 and 121.75 hours.
UConn Health agreed with all of the findings either in part or in its entirety. The institution mentioned the steps it is taking to address the repeated and new findings as part of its agency response.
Since the last audit, UConn Health resolved its annual performance evaluations and maintained those files, renegotiated contracts to avoid paying for benefits that are already included in the state Employees' retirement system, such as long-term disability insurance coverage for managers, maximizing cash flow by requesting the full amount owed through its Residency Training Program each year, and performed assessments of its purchasing power.
To read the full audit report, click here.
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