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always returned to her for placement in the electronic contract repository and she had to go back to her emails to find things she often asked others to upload or expected the Purchasing Department to have maintained. In addition, the former Purchasing Director indicated that there were instances when the Purchasing Department had not initially been advised or made aware of a contract. The more recent former Purchasing Director, who during the completion of the examination was reassigned to another department by KSU, noted that one contract in our selection for review was facilitated through the former President's Office; as such, her office did not have or maintain a copy of that contract. This contract was for consulting services to assist KSU in the SACSCOC accreditation process.
In FY 2020, KSU lost an unknown quantity of procurement documents that had been uploaded to a prior contract repository system when KSU failed to pay its bill and the vendor locked KSU out of the system. Vendor services were paid through mid-November 2019, but the actual date access to the system, and KSU’s data, was lost is unknown. Although hardcopy versions of some of the documents existed on campus, this specific electronic collection of documents was never recovered.
KSU lost an unknown quantity of procurement documents when it failed to pay its bill and the vendor locked KSU out of the system.
KSU started using its current contract management system on September 30, 2020. This system serves as a central repository for contracts using a cloud-based, user-authenticated software program. This gives everyone at the University who needs access, access to their contracts. The Office of the General Counsel and the Purchasing Director have administrator rights allowing them to add contracts and users to the system and to run system queries. Purchasing staff have viewer rights allowing them to see contracts and run system queries only. Currently, the program serves the entire campus.
KSU staff interviewed indicated that no training was provided during the examination period concerning records retention. The former General Counsel noted that KSU did not have a robust records retention program and that she told the former KSU President that university-wide training was needed, but he didn’t respond. As such, she indicated that she would often take the opportunity to explain the retention policy during conversations with staff.
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