President Akakpo:

• ●Confirmed that he now reviews all E&G expenditures and monitors cash balances twice weekly.
• ●Reported that he is moving forward with hiring a Budget Director and additional financial staff to improve forecasting and reporting.
• ●Stated that going forward, significant variances will be brought back to the Board as mid-year budget adjustments.

On scholarships/waivers/write-offs, Dr. Hicks and President Akakpo clarified that:

• ●The “scholarship” line includes institutional scholarships, tuition waivers, and write-offs.
• ●An overrun of approximately $1.3 million was driven primarily by:
• ○The contiguous-state tuition program approved by the Board, which was more heavily utilized than anticipated, and
• ○Increased dual-credit enrollments, where students pay a reduced per-credit rate that is significantly lower than the University's standard tuition, requiring the remaining amount to be written off.

Board members stressed the importance of:

• ●More realistic scholarship and discount rate projections, and
• ●Increased enforcement of purchasing policies (e.g., requiring purchase orders and proper approvals prior to incurring obligations), including accountability measures for non-compliance.

ii. FY 2024 Audit Status

Dr. Hicks provided an update on the status of the FY 2024 financial audit:

• ●Protiviti (consultant) has provided approximately 70% of the audit requests from CliftonLarsonAllen (CLA) and reports that approximately 72% of the identified accounting support tasks are either in progress or complete.
• ●As of August 6, 2025, CLA has completed roughly 25% of the audit procedures that can be conducted without a final trial balance, focusing primarily on single audit and other compliance-related testing.
• ●A daily 3–4 p.m. project status meeting with Protiviti has been established to accelerate resolution of outstanding questions and move workpapers to final form more quickly.

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