**Update 9/1: DC has significantly re-worked the story, so the quote below no longer appears there.**
I very much appreciate the Daily Chronicle‘s continued persistence and endurance with the NIU “coffee fund” story, especially as things get curioser.
DeKALB – Northern Illinois University has located the “coffee fund” and shut it down.
University officials said the private, non-university bank account, which contained about $2,100, has been closed, with the money deposited into the university’s general fund.
Four employees in NIU’s Materials Management Department have been placed on paid leave for a maximum of 30 days, but NIU spokesman Paul Palian did not know the names of those employees.
If the account was a private, non-university account, how is it that NIU was able to determine it was NIU money, and how did NIU close it? And if NIU knows the money from the account is NIU money, why are people being put on vacations instead of being charged with crimes?
And speaking of crimes, where is our able State’s Attorney and his much-ballyhooed (well, self-ballyhooed) anti-corruption unit?
7 comments
Comment by yinn on August 31, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Terrific editorial by the Northern Star today: “University lacks transparency, should have external review”
Comment by Steve Berg on August 31, 2012 at 6:35 pm
I suspect that the main difficulty in finding this account was determining which of the sets of books was the right one.
Comment by Steve Berg on August 31, 2012 at 7:49 pm
I realize that keeping track of funds at an institution as large as NIU is not a task for the faint of heart, but they apparently had been depositing these checks for some time. The Star is right, some more transparency is a good idea.
I have also known of at least one situation in a municipality where there was a bank account that for some reason did not show up in the audits, but was discovered by the mayor. This discovery required that they bring in forensic auditors to try to put this fund back into their financial system.
Comment by Kerry Mellott on August 31, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Boy, it all blurs together, but did I call for a forensic audit at NIU on the DC blog some weeks ago? Or was it just my wishful thinking?
Tip of the iceberg?
Comment by Anson MacDonald on August 31, 2012 at 11:27 pm
Forensic audit? Kerry, unless you have a little more information, you’d be looking for a needle in a haystack. It seems to be a popular buzzword… but let’s get real. I promise you that would cost a lot more than the $13,000 which was reported to flow through the coffee fund in recent history.
No fraud is acceptable but folks, so far we’re talking about pocket change under the couch cushions given the NIU revenue stream. There are some much deeper accusations floating in the wind, but until those are confirmed, this is small potatoes.
Comment by deke on September 1, 2012 at 1:48 am
Interesting… Albanese was not part of “Materials Management”… Everything I have seen so far referred to the Physical Plant…
I worked at Materials Management (Central Stores) for 17 yrs., and we had a “coffee fund”… we got the use of coffee machine for free as long as we bought coffee from the vendor, the “coffee fund” owned the pop machine and got pop where it was the cheapest, and took the huge profits from coffee and pop sales (and the recycled cans from the pop) and had a catered Xmas party for the building, usually Bruce Whitman or Bill Badal (5 B’s) catered it. Then, usually another dinner sometime during the year for all the folks in the building, 45-50 people in all.
Obviously this is not related to the recycling of thousands of dollars of metal from construction projects, so have to wonder why “Materials Management” is involved.
Comment by yinn on September 1, 2012 at 9:45 am
I should think that a targeted forensic audit of the departments or divisions involved would be part and parcel of any competent investigation of them.
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