Contact: John Chandler ,
(818) 677-5674
jchandler@exec.csun.edu

CSUN Moving to Streamline Campus Finances

The university initiative--dubbed "The e -Campus Re-engineering Project" --will be further refined during the next several months, with implementation due to start in April. The president said the initiative will seek to develop better information and greater efficiency in university finances.

"We're trying to develop the most efficient financial management system possible within the purview of the University Controller," Wilson said. The president, CSUN's executive officers and the campus budget advisory board have each supported general goals prepared by a university consultant.

Apart from its 27,000 students and several thousand employees, the university also is a vast financial enterprise, with an operating budget this year of about $185 million. But that counts only the university and not its five separate auxiliary organizations, which historically have had separate finances.

One goal endorsed by campus leaders is to consolidate the accounting all university-related expenditures, including those of the auxiliary organizations, into the university's own general ledger. That change would improve current financial controls and the quality of campus financial data.

Other goals include strengthening controls over the processing of campus financial transactions and improving the quality of financial information throughout the institution, such as providing the president with a unified monthly financial statement for the entire campus.

The recommendations were prepared by a consulting firm hired by the campus, K. Scott Hughes Associates. The consultants this week presented the university with draft recommendations based on interviews with about 75 CSUN employees, from vice presidents to managers to financial technicians.

Many of the issues raised exist in other organizations, the consultants said. For example, Cal State campuses statewide have more than 70 auxiliary organizations in total, and the CSU system likewise is moving toward more uniform, standardized financial reporting methods.

In their review, the consultants said CSUN needs to improve its financial management systems and controls, stemming both from a Cal State University system move toward decentralization in the early 1990s that put more burdens on campuses and from the impacts of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Some issues identified by the consultants included the decentralization of financial information among so many different university entities, variations in financial technology and staff expertise across the university's many departments, and more than 300 financial systems used throughout the campus.

The president noted that the university is already moving to address some of the consultants' issues, including beginning a search to hire a university auditor to serve as an internal fiscal watchdog, and the conversion in coming years to a new set of computer systems for human resource, financial and student records.