| Public Release Date: November 6, 1997 | No. 97-53 |
Rainy River Community 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. Rainy River Community College is a two year college. Allen Rasmussen is the president of the college.
The objectives of our audit were to gain an understanding of the internal control structure over the accounting and reporting of 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, payroll, supply and equipment purchases, and bookstore operations for the period July 1, 1995, through June 30, 1997. We also reviewed the college's internal controls over compliance with federal student financial aid for fiscal year 1997.
Rainy River Community College did not properly separate duties for key financial activities. The college had a limited number of staff to perform accounting duties which contributed to several internal control weaknesses. The college did not adequately establish controls over its local bank accounts. The use of several different bank accounts to process financial transactions added to the burden of effort for the accounting staff.
We noted other weaknesses over tuition and fees, payroll, supplies and equipment purchases, bookstore operations, and federal cash management, as discussed in the individual chapters of this report. The college did record its financial activities on the MnSCU and MAPS accounting systems. However, the college did not record some financial information completely or timely.
The college concurred with the audit report findings and recommendations. The college indicated that it has already taken corrective action on several areas as shown in the agency response.
