Lax controls over athletics cash transactions at Alabama’s largest community college could open the door for errors, irregularities or fraud, state auditors warn in a newly released report.
The Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts also found Calhoun Community College incorrectly held onto nearly $450,000 in unspent public money earmarked for inmate education -- for 20 months.
Calhoun Community College was unable to document receipts or deposits from over a dozen instances of athletics revenue, including gate admissions and concession sales, between October 2021 and September 2023, according to state auditors in a report issued last week. The lapses put the college out of compliance with accounting policies of the Alabama Community College System, auditors wrote, allowing “an increased risk for the possibility of errors or irregularities, including misappropriations and fraud, to occur.”
ACCS accounting guidelines require cash to be reconciled with supporting documents and bank statements, prenumbered receipts for cash transactions and prompt deposits.
Yet when auditors reviewed two unspecified athletics events, the college could not provide receipts for gate sales or documentation of deposits, according to the report. The college stated coaches may decide whether to charge for entry but lacks a process to document when or how those decisions are made.
“The College was also unable to provide receipt and deposit documentation for concessions revenue because the College did not maintain any detail of concession sales,” auditors wrote.
Auditors then requested another 12 athletics transactions for review and found inadequate documentation for cash collected in 11 of them. The college told auditors receipt documentation was thrown away after cash was turned in, according to the report.
Auditors also found Calhoun Community College incorrectly retained $449,049.16 in public money appropriated for educational programs to serve incarcerated people. Those funds remained unspent from fiscal years 2021 and 2022, and along with money for similar programs at community colleges around the state were to be consolidated at J. F. Ingram State Technical College in 2022. The Deatsville college exclusively serves Alabama’s incarcerated population.
Instead, auditors found, Calhoun Community College retained the funds until April of this year – when the state sent a letter requesting they be transferred to Ingram. That meant public money intended to support corrections education was unavailable for nearly two years.
“By [Calhoun Community College] retaining these funds, stakeholders and policymakers were unaware of additional funds available to operate these programs,” auditors wrote.
The college did not immediately respond to a request for comment about policy changes in the wake of the report.
Calhoun Community College enrolls about 10,000 students for credit on its Decatur and Huntsville campuses, according to its website. Almost half of them transfer to the University of Alabama in Huntsville or Athens State University.
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