University Times

The Board of Trustees audit committee on May 13 approved the state’s audit for Pitt’s fiscal year 2009 appropriation.

Pitt is required to make a written response to the auditor general’s reports, rejecting or accepting any findings, observations or recommendations made in the reports.

Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner gave a clean opinion for Pitt’s statement of appropriations earned, saying that it “presents fairly, in all material respects, the earned appropriations” of the University.

The University’s FY09 operating budget was set at $1.71 billion; however, the state’s audit covers only the portion supported by the state appropriation.

Legislators initially set Pitt’s FY09 appropriation at $170.73 million, but mid-year cuts reduced it 6 percent to just under $160.49 million. (See Jan. 8, 2009, University Times.)

The University reported that the FY09 appropriation was allocated:

• $156.77 million for educational and general purposes,

• $415,480 for enhancing the recruitment and retention of disadvantaged students,

• $491,620 for the teen suicide center at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic,

• $2.4 million for rural education outreach at the Bradford campus and

• $408,900 for student life initiatives.

The state auditor general has the right to audit and disallow expenditures made for purposes inconsistent with the state appropriation. In the FY09 audit, a test of 59 sample expenditures (totaling $60.16 million) to determine whether the expenditures supported the stated purpose of the appropriation revealed no exceptions.

Pitt also reported fall term 2008 enrollment of 34,485 full- and part-time students, 76.9 percent of whom were from Pennsylvania; spring term 2009 enrollment of 32,823 (76.8 percent from Pennsylvania), and summer term 2009 enrollment of 11,597 (76 percent from Pennsylvania).

—Kimberly K. Barlow