The Sacramento State auditing services are taking a step in prevention by advising faculty and staff about fraud with a circulating document, “Top Ten Practices to Avoid Fraud.”

Sac State is taking these measures because of an incident where San Jose State University was audited by The California State University Chancellor’s office: they found that SJSU’s Justice Studies Department was not instituting acceptable expenditure practices.

“These are already campus policies and procedures, so we wanted to remind everyone of all of these,” said Kaye Milburn, director for auditing services at Sac State.

The document was a collaborative effort by Auditing Services, Financial Services and University Enterprises Inc.

Because the spectrum of university policies covers all departments at Sac State, Milburn said the document would make it easier for faculty and staff to pinpoint a specific policy.

“We mainly wrote this for them [Sac State faculty and staff] this way so they don’t have to try to find what the university policy is, so this is mainly like a one-stop-shop,” said Milburn.

It is crucial that faculty and staff know if they are practicing Sac State’s best practices because Milburn said one wrong turn can lead to negative consequences, like an institutional audit.

“I want them to look at it, and so does financial services, because this is so important,” said Milburn. “If these [policy practices] do not happen it causes problems and holds back payments that may need to get reimbursed.”

There are staff members who believe certain financial policies- like purchasing things through departments- are very difficult to follow, and having the right tools to reference best practices makes it much easier.

Jessica Castellon, program coordinator for the Multi Cultural Center, said the process for requesting funds through a department is long but necessary.

“You have to go through a department to purchase things, procurement and accounts payable are the two main departments we have to go through so if anybody needs to travel or we want to book a speaker or anything like that we have to submit what is called a requisition which is basically an online request,” said Castellon,

The form of the document is well accepted by staff members like Castellon, applauding its simplicity and ability for the policies to be in one place.

“I definitely think it is a good thing because when we have all these different manuals it definitely gets complicated when you are trying to learn the process,” said Castellon. “There is a travel process, and then there is a buying things process; there is a booking speakers process.”

In addition, several faculty members believe that having a paper trail when traveling is necessary to prove that the right practices are being done.

“Clearly for lodging you need receipts, if you are staying with your aunt and charging a hotel, that is fraud,” said William Vizzard, professor for the Division of Criminal Justice. “If you say you flew there and you didn’t, you drove, that is fraud.”

The document was sent out via email primarily to faculty and staff. Milburn says that in the future, it is expected to be available to future employees.

“We are putting it in new employee orientation packets; I am trying to work with HR for all of the other divisions when they hire new people so they have a guideline as well when they start,” Milburn said.