| Public Release Date: July 16, 1999 | No. 99-37 |
Hennepin Technical College is part of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System (MnSCU). MnSCU began operations on July 1, 1995, when the state universities, community colleges, and technical colleges throughout the state merged under one governance structure. HTC is a two-year college with campuses in Brooklyn Park and Eden Prairie. Dr. Sharon Grossbach serves as president of the college.
Our audit scope covered the period July 1, 1995, through June 30, 1998. The objectives of our audit were to gain an understanding of the internal control structure over the major financial activities of the college and to determine if the college complied with material finance-related legal provisions. The areas covered by our audit were tuition and fees, customized training and fee based programs, employee payroll, administrative expenditures, and food service and bookstore operations. We also reviewed the college's internal controls over compliance with federal student financial aid for fiscal year 1999.
We concluded that Hennepin Technical College operated within its available resources and generally operated in compliance with management's authorization and applicable legal requirements for the items tested. Overall, the college designed and implemented internal controls to provide reasonable assurance that its financial activities were properly accounted for and accurately recorded on the accounting systems. However, we make recommendations for improving bank account reconciliations and reducing the number of bank accounts used by the college. The college designed and implemented controls in the business office, bookstore, food service, and financial aid office to help ensure that assets were safeguarded, transactions authorized, and financial activity accurately reported in the accounting systems. However, the college needs to improve its management of third party accounts receivables, segregate duties over tuition and customized training revenue, and improve procedures over transferring customized training receipts from the Plymouth center to the Brooklyn Park campus. In addition, the college needs to prepare financial statements for its bookstore and food service operations and improve the review of bookstore and food service void and refund transactions.
In its audit response, Hennepin Technical College agreed with the audit findings and is taking corrective action to resolve the issues.
