Crimson and Gold Connection; Ladonna Flynn

Welcome to Crimson and Gold Connection, keeping you connected with the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. This week on Crimson and Gold Connection, I'm joined by Ladonna Flynn, who is Director of Internal Audit at Pittsburgh State University. Internal Audit is an integral part of the university and reports directly to the President and indirectly to the Kansas Board of Regents. Ladonna and I were talking earlier and previously I was interested to hear that in certain events she may actually bypass the President and report directly to the Kansas Board of Regents, which is an event we both hope will never actually happen. I agree, I hope that never happens. Welcome Ladonna, good to see you. May 2016 is, as Ladonna tells me, internal audit awareness month and so I'm sure there are a number of activities which you want to tell us about in terms of internal audit in the university. Yes, part of month of May being internal audit awareness month is trying to get out the news about internal audit and what we do at the university. I'm a member of the Association of College and University Auditors at the national level and I'm the chairperson of the Internal Audit Awareness Committee. So part of that committee's work is we've been developing tools for auditors to use on their campuses to educate everyone about internal audit and make them understand us a little bit better.

And I thought, well, here I am, the chair, I really would like to do something on my campus this year. So I come up with maybe coming on here to talk about internal audit and what I do on the campus. Internal audit as its apartment is a fairly recent innovation within PSU, isn't it? Or am I mistaken? It's been around for quite a while. It's probably been around since about the 1996, 97, but started out just having a part time person, I believe. And then it slowly moved into having a full time person and I've been here since 2012. Tell us a little bit about the activities of internal audit and what is an average day in the life of the director of internal audit at PSU. At average a day for me can be very, very crazy. I can be going to a committee meeting. I can be working on an audit. I can be doing research for departments depending on what they need. Most outsiders of our profession believe that internal auditor set all day behind their desk with a tin key or a spreadsheet. I like to get it out that, you know, that's not what we do. We're not like the external auditor set in their counting numbers the whole time.

We also do a lot of operational audits. For example, here at the university I audited the library. Part of that audit involved me setting behind the circulation desk, watching how they check out books and how that whole process operated and how they collected finds and fees. That had nothing to do with numbers. That was more operational and observing if their processes were efficient and effective. That's one of internal audit schools is to try and look at our processes and make sure processes are efficient and effective and still mitigate the risks to the universities and make sure we have good internal controls. So as it says in your vision statement, you strive to continually add value and mitigate risk through evaluations of university operations. Yes, I try and add value. That's one of my big things when I'm doing an audit. I don't want to just be out there doing the audit. I want to try and add value and find a way that can make everyone's life easier and make things more efficient and more effective. How is internal audit awareness month actually being played out in other institutions as well as here?

Well, there's several institutions that I know of that are handing out brochures to departments. They are putting on lunch and learns where they do presentations about internal auditing, where they report to and how we do select audits and what's the audit process. Our committee also developed a brand new brochure for everyone to use that kind of talks about the definition of internal audit based on what the Institute of Internal Auditors says. And what is to be expected from auditors? You know, a lot of times we get played as the police person. People think we are the policemen, but I don't like to be looked at the policeman. I'm the one coming in to try and help you make things better, not trying to catch you do something wrong. From your internal audit person, you should expect courtesy, communication, credible, consistency, competency, and most of us are certified. I am a certified internal auditor through the Institute of Internal Auditors. Some most internal auditors are certified are working on their certification. You said to me before we were on air that your background is slightly in accountancy. And is that the case with a lot of internal auditors in higher education?

Most of us do start out in accounting, but that is not always the case. I know the director of internal audit up in KU started out as a political science major and wanted to go into city management. Actually fell into a job with post-legislative audit and has stayed in audit ever since. What other things can we look forward to in internal audit awareness month in PSU? Well, I've still tried to come up with some more ideas. Like I said, this was my main one and this is actually my first year of trying to do something during the month of May. In the prior years, I've been very, very busy with projects and still I'm very busy with projects. But now that I'm the chair, I feel like I really need to do something and this is the center views my first step of trying to get something out to the community. I also, when I go out to do departmental audits, I actually tell them a little bit more about internal auditing so they can understand what I'm going to be doing while I'm auditing their department. I have a presentation I do with them and their department so that people can understand a little bit more about what we do.

So as well as an auditing function, you have a sort of educational function in informing people what you are going to be doing when you visit and when you actually start operating. Very much so when you look at internal audit, we kind of have a bunch of different hats we play. Not only do we do auditing, but we also act as consultants. For example, I set in the consulting capacity on the PCI committee for the OIS department. We also can be at provide education, which I did this past fall. I provided education about the new compliance and ethics hotline. For the benefit of the uninitiated myself included, what's PCI? PCI is the regulations you have to follow if you're going to accept credit card payments because the university accepts credit cards for tuition and housing and fees. We have to follow certain guidelines that are put out by the credit card companies. So I do set on that committee as advisor to try and make sure we're doing what's right. Increasingly, I think I'm aware that we are in the university moving away from a lot of cash transactions and moving towards cashless credit card debit card, aren't we?

Yes, that would be my goal to get cash off of campus. That's been one of my long time goals. Cash just caused headaches for lots of reasons that I prefer getting cash off of campus. And or all cash going directly to the cashier's office so that it's handled properly. May of 2016 is internal audit awareness month. And so are there any other things that you'd like to bring to our attention in conclusion? I'd like to say that when we when I do come in to do an audit, I'm never coming in with intention to catch you doing something wrong. My intention is to evaluate the process to determine if all the risks have been identified and we're mitigating those risks and we're being more efficient and more effective and to try and save that person some time and maybe do something a little bit easier and faster. So you are acting in an advisory capacity rather than being the thought police have internal audit. That's how I like to be. That's how I like to rent my internal audit shop.

Ladonna Flynn, Director of Internal Audit at Pittsburgh State University. Thank you very much for coming over. Thank you. For KRPS and for Crimson and Gold Connection, my name is Robert Smith. Join us for Crimson and Gold Connection Wednesdays at 8.50 and Fridays at 350.