A new state audit finds "gross mismanagement" of a rural vanpool program by the state DOT public transportation division, and the findings have been referred to the State Bureau of Investigation for possible action.

The audit report says that:

DOT allowed a Raleigh-Durham area company, 2Plus Inc., to operate the vanpool program with 38 DOT-owned vans for six years without a contract. The company received $4.3 million to operate the program for 11 years.

DOT vans were used to transport South Carolina residents to jobs in North Carolina.

An Outer Banks resort used DOT vans to shuttle its nonresident alien workers between the resort property and local housing.

2Plus billed DOT for $163,272 for personal mileage fees, backup fees and insurance deductibles "that appeared excessive or unreasonable." DOT did not review 2Plus invoices to make sure it paid only for reasonable expenses.

Miriam S. Perry, who retired in December as public transportation division director, personally managed the 2Plus contract, but she did not personally manage other DOT contracts.

Beth A. Wood, the state auditor, said her findings and Perry's role in personally managing the vanpool contract would be referred to the SBI.

Gene Conti, the DOT secretary, today named Teresa Hart the new director of the public transportation division.  Hart, a 26-year DOT veteran and a registered professional engineer, recently served as unit head and project planning engineer for DOT's Project Development and Environmental Analysis Branch.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, some employees are smarting over adjustments to their vacation and sick leave bank.

A recent audit found a big mess with the school of education's timekeeping practices. As a result, dozens of employees have had their bank of vacation and sick time reduced to balance the books.

It hasn't made folks happy. Here's the story.

I've poured through the audits of the four schools at East Wake High which were done in part to see if the schools will continue.

The audits made observations that principals have taken to heart. And they were working on some of the recommendations long before audits pointed out their challenges.

According to Eastern District Superintendent Danny Barnes, audits are done to assess the alignment of written curriculum, taught curriculum and the tested curriculum. Closer alignment means  higher student achievement, Barnes said.

He also said some data already shows student academic growth.

If the audits are helpful, they are worth it. And according to discussions I had with principals, they seem to think they are.

Most of the audits were essentially positive except for the School of Integrated Technology's. It said teachers openly express low expectations for students and that evaluators were unable to determine in some classes what students were expected to learn.

Those are tough words. A parent I spoke with whose son attends the School of Technology was concerned, but surprised. She spoke highly of his teachers, and noted that the indictment couldn't be the case for all.

DURHAM -- A city audit has found at least $60,000 in overtime paid to a Durham police officer "was not justifiable or reasonable" and that lax oversight by department officials contributed to the abuse.

Deputy Chief B.J. Council, who signed off on the overtime, will retire as of Dec. 31, Police Chief Jose Lopez said this afternoon. Beginning Monday, Council will be on personal leave until the end of the year. She is a 31-year veteran of the Durham police, Lopez said.

The school system is touting how a new method for auditing individual schools will "help schools see how they can improve."

Click here for the district's press release on the new audit process.

The new approach drew a lot of discussion at the March 31 school board committee of the whole meeting. Much of the talk was around whether the audits might actually hurt morale at individual schools.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST 

A new state audit of N.C. Central University's 2007 fiscal year found some deficiencies in financial reporting but also had some good things to say about what it deemed the state's fastest-growing public university.

The audit, dated July 10, is the exhaustive annual examination of the sort the state audit office does of all public universities. It looks at the whole of a university's financial operation, not just a targeted problem, like the recent audit that found employees using university computers to view porn and other media.