REPORT DIGEST

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

FINANCIAL AUDIT
FOR THE YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 2021

Release Date:  June 8, 2022

FINDINGS THIS AUDIT:  1

CATEGORY:  NEW -- REPEAT – TOTAL
Category 1:  0 -- 1 -- 1
Category 2:  0 -- 0 -- 0
Category 3:  0 -- 0 -- 0
TOTAL:  0 -- 1 -- 1

FINDINGS LAST AUDIT: 2

Category 1: Findings that are material
weaknesses in internal control and/or
a qualification on compliance with
State laws and regulations (material
noncompliance).
Category 2: Findings that are
significant deficiencies in internal
control and noncompliance with State
laws and regulations.
Category 3: Findings that have no
internal control issues but are in
noncompliance with State laws and
regulations.

State of Illinois, Office of the
Auditor General
FRANK J. MAUTINO, AUDITOR GENERAL

To obtain a copy of the Report
contact:
Office of the Auditor General, Iles
Park Plaza, 740 E. Ash Street,
Springfield, IL 62703
(217) 782-6046 or TTY (888) 261-2887

This Report Digest and Full Report are
also available on the worldwide web at
www.auditor.illinois.gov

INTRODUCTION

This digest covers Southern Illinois
University’s Financial Audit as of and
for the year ended June 30, 2021.  The
University’s Compliance Examination
and Single Audit will be issued in
separate reports at a later date.

SYNOPSIS

• (21-1) The University did not have
adequate internal control over
reporting its census data and did not
have a reconciliation process to
provide assurance census data
submitted to its pension and other
postemployment benefit plans was
complete and accurate.

FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

INADEQUATE INTERNAL CONTROLS OVER
CENSUS DATA

Southern Illinois University
(University) did not have adequate
internal control over reporting its
census data and did not have a
reconciliation process to provide
assurance census data submitted to its
pension and other postemployment
benefits (OPEB) plans was complete and
accurate.

Some of the more significant issues we
noted during our testing included the
following:

• The University had not performed an
initial complete reconciliation of its
census data recorded by the State
Universities Retirement System (SURS)
to its internal records to establish a
base year of complete and accurate
census data.

• We identified thirteen employees who
had been improperly excluded from
participating in SURS, which resulted
in these people not having any
employee contributions collected by
the University and reported to SURS.
The potential impact to each
employee’s total service credit was it
could be off between 0 and 21.75
years. (Finding 1, pages 7-10).

We recommended the University
implement controls to ensure census
data events are timely and accurately
reported to SURS. Further, we
recommended the University work with
SURS to annually reconcile its active
members’ census data from its
underlying records to a report of
census data submitted to SURS’ actuary
and CMS’ actuary. After completing an
initial full reconciliation, the
University may limit the annual
reconciliations to focus on the
incremental changes to the census data
file from the prior actuarial
valuation, provided no risks are
identified that incomplete or
inaccurate reporting of census data
may have occurred during prior
periods. Any errors identified during
this process should be promptly
corrected by either the University or
SURS, with the impact of these errors
communicated to both SURS’s actuary
and CMS’ actuary.

Finally, we recommended the University
work with SURS and CMS to identify and
address any unremitted or erroneously
remitted employee and, if applicable,
employer contributions related to
these events.

The University agreed and stated the
campuses are developing automated
processes to address the
recommendations.

We will review the University’s
progress towards the implementation of
our recommendations in our next
financial audit.

AUDITOR’S OPINION(S)

The auditors stated the financial
statements of the University as of and
for the year ended June 30, 2021 are
fairly stated in all material
respects.

This financial audit was conducted by
Plante & Moran, PLLC.

JANE CLARK
Division Director

This report is transmitted in
accordance with Section 3-14 of the
Illinois State Auditing Act.

FRANK J. MAUTINO
Auditor General

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