AUDIT FAULTS NASSAU COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOR
EXCESSIVE COMP TIME, LAX PERSONNEL PRACTICES

An audit of time and leave practices at Nassau Community College has found abuses of compensatory time by top administrators, improper contributions to retirement plans for some employees, and other instances of lax personnel practices, Comptroller Howard Weitzman announced today.

More than a dozen of the college’s top administrators, including the college president, were granted hundreds of hours of compensatory time for attending normal college functions such as graduation, monthly meetings of the Board of Trustees, faculty luncheons, award ceremonies and a campus fashion show during the three-year period examined by the auditors (2002-2004).

"In fairness, our audit findings reflect no judgment on the quality of the college’s administrators or their devotion to the college,” Comptroller Weitzman said.  “Nassau Community College has made great strides over the last decade to become one of the finest community colleges in the SUNY system, and certainly its leadership deserves credit for transforming Nassau into the respected institution it is today.

“But at a time when Nassau County government is challenged to restrain its budget and do more with less, the college must do its part to control expenses and eliminate wasteful personnel practices.  Such change must begin at the top.

“Our audit found that senior college officials routinely claimed compensatory time for attendance at normal college functions,” Comptroller Weitzman said.  “These officials included the college president, who logged an average of 120 hours of ‘comp’ time per year during the audit period, the most by any official at the college.  That amount is equivalent to nearly one extra month of salary per year.

“Under the college’s own guidelines, ‘comp’ time for these administrators is to be authorized only in ‘extraordinary’ circumstances.  It would be extraordinary indeed if the college president and other officers were not to attend commencement exercises, or some of the other routine events in the life of a college for which they claimed compensatory time.”

Senior administrators at the college, unlike faculty members, are employed under terms spelled out in a Nassau County ordinance.  Compensatory time is authorized for such employees only in extraordinary circumstances.  In addition, the college president’s employment contract also provides that compensatory time may be granted in “extraordinary circumstances.”  The audit found nine top administrators were granted a total of 1,793 hours in compensatory time over the audit period, equaling more than 265 days of leave.

Comptroller Weitzman called on the college to review the appropriateness of the compensatory time already granted and reverse any accruals that were not made for extraordinary circumstances.

The audit also found that, over the three-year audit period, the college contributed approximately $300,000 to retirement plans for 36 employees who had returned to work part-time at the college after retiring and who were already receiving state pensions.  Such payments, which have been made for the last 20 years, are not allowed under New York State law.  In addition, the college has been contributing 1 percent over the statutory rate to the President’s retirement account. 

“The college was wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars, in effect funding a second state pension for these returning pensioners, in violation of state law,” Comptroller Weitzman said.  In its response to the audit, the college states that, upon notification of the violation by the Comptroller’s office in September 2005, it suspended the practice of making retirement contributions to faculty who are returning pensioners.  The college also says it will refer the president’s contract back to the Board of Trustees for renegotiation with respect to the excess retirement contribution.
Among the audit’s other findings:

• The college consistently exceeded its budget for travel expenses by more than 50 percent in each year examined by the auditors.  An analysis of the overage requested by the college’s Board of Trustees was never provided by college administrators.
  
  
• Even though IRS regulations may permit part-time instructors in the college’s adult learning program to be treated as independent contractors, the college treats them as employees.  As a result, the college paid an additional payroll tax (FICA) expense of $134,000 during the audit period, which may have been avoidable.  The audit report recommends that the college should not treat workers who meet the IRS criteria of independent contractors as county employees, and thus avoid the FICA payments.
  
  
• In examining timekeeping records for employees who run the college’s physical plant and who use a time clock to record their hours, auditors found that timecards for six employees out of 31 studied (about 20 percent of cases) did not agree with payroll records.  In each case, employees were paid for more hours than had been recorded on the timecards.

In 2004, Nassau Community College employed 3,424 people, including 1,170 full-time and 2,254 part-time employees, serving a student population of nearly 21,000 students.  It is the largest of the 30 community colleges in the SUNY system.

The complete audit report may be read by clicking the link at the end of this page.

COMPENSATORY HOURS CLAIMED BY TOP ADMINISTRATORS

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Nassau Community College
Limited Review of Timekeeping and Personnel Practices
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Corrective Action Plan - (~ 1 mB - 17 pages)
(.pdf file - Adobe Reader® required)