RALEIGH, N.C. — Workers within a Fayetteville State University office misused school-issued credit cards or failed to document card transactions for purchases or travel sufficiently, valued in all at several hundred thousand dollars, according to a North Carolina state audit released Tuesday.
State Auditor Jessica Holmes’ agency also sent its findings related to Fayetteville State’s Office of Strategic Communication to the State Bureau of Investigation to review for potential criminal wrongdoing. The office creates and carries out messaging to prospective students, faculty, donors and others. The audit also cited separately conflict-of-interest concerns because the university paid businesses owned by then-office workers.
The school, one of 17 in the University of North Carolina system, agreed with the audit findings and recommendations in its response attached to the report. Two office employees cited in the report are no longer working at the university, and “we have since then taken intentional steps to ensure that such violations do not occur again,” Chancellor Darrell Allison wrote.
The audit, which covered Jan. 1, 2022, through Aug. 31, 2023, found that office workers incurred over $692,000 in purchasing card or travel card transactions that were either unallowable, lacked sufficient documentation or both. The former associate vice chancellor for the office and the school’s ex-director of digital strategy were assigned travel cards, auditors wrote.
Auditors also found Fayetteville State paid $165,750 over the same period to businesses owned by the associate vice chancellor, the digital strategy director and two other now former workers. The former employees failed to disclose the business in which they had a financial interest as required, the audit said.