A Review of Enrollment Reporting by Texas Public Community, State, and Technical Colleges
October 2003
Report Number 04-004
Overall Conclusion
Based on our analysis of public community, state, and technical colleges' (colleges) estimated and actual contact hours for spring 2003, the Higher Education Coordinating Board (Coordinating Board) must redistribute $2,024,408 of appropriated funding among the community colleges. The Coordinating Board redistributes the funds at the direction of the Legislative Budget Board.
Colleges receive most of their state appropriations based on the contact hours they report for the base period; the current base period consists of the summer 2002, fall 2002, and spring 2003 semesters. Due to its timing, the funding allocation uses actual (certified) hours for the summer and fall semesters and precertified hours for the spring semester. Once certified spring data is available, the Coordinating Board must adjust the colleges' funding accordingly.
In addition, the colleges self-audit their actual enrollment hours for the entire base period and report the results to the State Auditor. Because none of the colleges' errors exceeded the 2 percent error rate allowed by the Legislature, only the adjustments discussed above are necessary.
The State Auditor's Office subjected
the reported information to analytical tests and other procedures, including
on-site risk assessments at 13 colleges. During these site visits, we conducted
interviews and obtained detailed data from the student information systems to
perform further analysis on the accuracy of the reporting. Based on these tests
and the colleges' self-audits, and because colleges have historically not exceeded
the allowed 2 percent error rate, we did not conduct a comprehensive audit of
any college's contact hours. The colleges are still subject to an audit of contact
hours in conjunction with any other work that might be performed by the State
Auditor.
Contact the SAO about this report.
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