Dive Brief:
- The University of Connecticut needs to establish clear salary ranges for its professors and other employees, state auditors reported.
- The auditors also found the school failed to fully explore other alternatives before choosing Kuali Financial System, a higher education-specific system that cost $10.1 million to implement as of June 30, 2013.
- UConn also reportedly wasted nearly $1 million on licensing fees for SciQuest purchasing software before the school could use it, according to the audit.
Dive Insight:
The state audit covered the two-year period ended in June 2011. Auditors said UConn has no salary ceiling for professors and no pay ranges established for many other positions, contrary to standard practice for state positions, the Associated Press reported. The issue is a sore spot for the university, which was criticized in 2011 for paying its police chief nearly $256,000 a year. On the software licensing issue, the school paid annual licensing fees of $331,500, $305,660, and $265,235 before SciQuest could be used, which was in 2012 when the university’s financial computer system was updated.