WINSTON-SALEM – A state audit found documentation gaps and three procurement-card transactions that did not comply with requirements at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
The North Carolina Office of the State Auditor published the performance audit Oct. 20. The review covered UNCSA procurement and travel-card activity from July 1, 2025, through Feb. 28, 2026.
UNCSA processed 6,555 card transactions totaling about $1.9 million during that period, according to the audit. Auditors examined a nonstatistical sample of 678 transactions totaling $592,226.
The audit said 65 sampled transactions, or 10%, lacked complete and accurate supporting documentation. Those transactions totaled $59,980. The issues included missing business purposes, attendee lists for food purchases, travel preapprovals and records explaining lodging costs above approved amounts.
Auditors also identified three transactions totaling $9,702 that did not comply with procurement-card requirements. One was a $1,042 Samsung Galaxy tablet, an item prohibited for procurement-card purchase. The other two transactions, totaling $8,660, split one purchase to avoid the card’s single-transaction limit, the audit said.
The audit attributed the problems to insufficient monitoring, training and enforcement. It recommended that UNCSA strengthen transaction reviews, expand recurring cardholder training and investigate violations, with corrective action when appropriate.
In the university’s written response, Chancellor Brian Cole said UNCSA agreed with the findings and had begun changes for the 2026-27 fiscal year. The response said the university was adding more real-time review and approval, notifying supervisors about overdue reconciliations, conducting proactive reviews and developing procedures that could include retraining, card revocation or other corrective action.
The audit cautioned that its sample was not statistically selected, so the results should not be projected to all UNCSA card transactions. The report addresses the university’s internal controls and compliance with state purchasing rules; it does not allege that every reviewed purchase was improper.
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Photo Credit: DiscoA340 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Stevens Center, owned by the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Winston-Salem; photographed Jan. 5, 2023. Proportionally cropped; adaptation distributed under CC BY-SA 4.0. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Editor’s Note: This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and fact-checked by a member of the NC Political News editorial team before publication.