(RNN) - For nearly a decade, grants meant to benefit low-income students at Howard University actually benefited some university employees.
According to a statement from Howard University President Wayne Frederick, six university employees were terminated after an independent audit discovered some employees benefited from university grants and tuition remission from 2007 - 2016.
Tuition remission lowers or waives the cost of tuition for a university employee.
The employees were only supposed to receive one benefit. The combination of the two benefits exceeded the cost of attendance and some people received inappropriate funds.
Frederick said he learned of the misappropriation in December 2016 and ordered an internal investigation. He fired the six employees in September 2017, but they were not made public until Wednesday, six months later.
The statement did, however, come just one day after an anonymous blogger accused the university of abusing funds amounting to around $1 million. The post, which was originally posted on Medium, has since been suspended.
According to the Huffington Post, the blogger cited an unnamed student whistleblower who used to work in the financial aid office and found irregularities in grant dispersals.
Howard officials told NBC News the president’s statement was not in reaction to the Medium post.
Frederick said federal funds were not misappropriated, just university funds. He did not identify the terminated employees but he said legal action is a possibility.
The university does not know how much money was misappropriated, but it is making efforts to ensure this type of thing does not happen again. They include the following:
- Annual budgets for each category of financial aid are now loaded into the University’s Banner student information system by the University Budget Office consistent with the University’s overall Financial Aid Budget.
- Approval for all awards of University Grants are now reviewed and approved by the Budget Office prior to being awarded by the Financial Aid Office
- Approval for all donor-designated scholarship awards are now reviewed and approved by the Controller’s Office prior to being awarded by the Financial Aid Office.
- Approval for all grant-funded financial aid are now reviewed and approved by the University’s Grant Accounting Unit prior to being awarded by the Financial Aid Office.
- Access to the Banner financial aid module has now been limited to a small number of appropriate senior University individuals, with adequate third-party review and appropriate segregation of duties.
- An annual reconciliation of awarded financial aid to approved financial aid is now being conducted.
- Management has established proper reporting relationships and segregation of duties within the Financial Aid Office.
- Management is in the process of hiring for all remaining open positions in the Financial Aid Office and enhanced training on policies and procedures will be provided both to new hires and continuing employees.
- A new Associate Provost for Enrollment Management and a new Chief Compliance Officer have been hired by the University.
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