OPA: NMC not in compliance

The Northern Marianas College is not in compliance with its travel policies and procedures, according to the Office of the Public Auditor’s independent audit on NMC’s financial statements for the years ended Sept. 30, 2018 and Sept. 30, 2017.

The Burger Comer Magliari, which conducted the independent audit, noted that on travel authorization matter, NMC’s policies do not address whether repatriation will be paid for employees or their dependents.

The auditor said in one of 90 travel authorizations, or 1 percent of the travel transactions tested, NMC paid for the repatriation of one of their employees together with his dependent.

The auditor recommendation is that to ensure that the travel transaction complies with their travel policies and procedures, verification of the purpose of travel should be performed and confirmed that it conforms to their policies.

“If NMC plans to pay for repatriation in the future, this should be included in NMC’s policies,” the auditor said.

On payroll, the auditor found that there is a possibility that incorrect salary is being paid to employees and as an effect this could overstate NMC’s expenses.

The auditor said two of 90 employees, or 2 percent of the samples selected for testing, were paid at a rate higher than what was stated on their latest personnel action form.

The auditor said the cause was that the most recent pay rate was not verified by NMC staff preparing the payroll.

The auditor’s recommendation is that in order to properly pay employees, the person in charge of payroll should secure a copy of the personnel action forms and verify the rate before entering it to the system.

On leave and sick leave credits, the auditor found that NMC did not comply with their payroll internal requirements in which verification of leave credits taken should be done before entering it to the system.

With this situation, the auditor said, an incorrect amount of salary was provided to the employee.

The auditor said for one of 90 tested, or 1 percent of the sample, they noted that approved hours for annual leave in the leave form did not match the hours indicated on the timesheet.

The auditor said the cause was there was a discrepancy in the leave hours found in the timesheet and in the leave form.

This discrepancy, the auditor said, was not addressed when the hours were entered in the system.

The auditor’s recommendation is that comparison of the leave hours taken between the timesheet and the leave form should be done before entering the payroll information to the system to ensure that approved hours in the leave form agrees with the timesheet.

With respect to contracts, the auditor found that NMC could not demonstrate compliance with their procurement policy.

The auditor said two of the 18 contracts tested, or 11 percent of the samples selected for testing, showed incomplete support in terms of public notice and approval for those contracts where publication was made for less than 30 days.

The auditor said the cause was that the supporting documents required to verify publication dates were not provided since these were all lost during Super Typhoon Yutu in 2018.

The auditor said NMC’s procurements records were in a building that withstood a previous typhoon.

The auditor’s recommendation is that when the procurement office is rebuilt, it should be constructed to withstand super typhoon conditions.

The auditor said the results of their tests disclosed no instances of noncompliance or other matters that are required to be reported under Government Auditing Standards.

The auditor also noted that there were no unresolved audit findings and questioned costs from the prior year audits of NMC.