An Audit Report on Enrollment Reporting by Texas Public Universities and Health-Related Institutions
September 2005
Report Number 06-004
Overall Conclusion
Universities' errors in base-period enrollment data are within the 2 percent error rate allowed by Section 18, pages III-242 and 243, the General Appropriations Act (79th Legislature, Regular Session). Section 18 specifies that The calculation of revised appropriation amounts shall allow each institution an error rate of up to two percent of the biennial appropriations related to the variables audited at that institution.
Net over-funding of universities totaled $2,009,298. Total formula funding appropriations for the 2006-2007 biennium were $3,402,169,542 for 35 universities and $952,567,119 for 8 of the 9 health-related institutions. The University of Texas Health Center at Tyler did not receive formula funding because it does not have students.
The State Auditor's Office subjected the reported information to analytical tests and other procedures, including on-site risk assessments and enrollment reviews at seven universities. During these site visits, we conducted interviews and obtained detailed data from the student information systems in order to do further analysis on the accuracy of reporting. Based on these tests and the universities' self-reported errors, and because universities and health-related institutions have historically not exceeded the allowed 2 percent error rate, we did not conduct a comprehensive audit of any university's or health-related institution's credit hours. Based on our risk assessment, we did not request self-reported errors from or visit health-related institutions. The universities and health-related institutions are still subject to an audit of credit hours in conjunction with any other work that might be performed by the State Auditor.
We also identified areas where internal controls can be improved at other universities and communicated that information to those universities.
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