Third party to audit foundation

Review to look back 15 years, cost

$17,000

SCOTT PREWITT

News Editor @s_prewitt

The Budget Committee gave its approval this week to begin a 15-year, $17,000 audit of the Foundation for Pierce College.

The Pierce Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization that handles fundraising for the college.

The foundation’s Senior Program Director Floriya Borzenkova said news of the audit was “unexpected” and “like thunder,” and that the foundation has paid a firm every year to conduct external audits, as required by law.

“If we did something wrong, or misused money, they would find it,” Borzenkova said. “And then we had an audit from the college. It was an internal audit. They didn’t find anything wrong on the financial side.”

Budget committee ex-officio Rolf Schleicher would not confirm the audit’s cost of $17,000 and declined multiple requests for a comment.

Schleicher referred the Roundup to the committee’s minutes. However, those minutes were unavailable. The most recent budget committee minutes were from July, 2014.

The audit was initially intended to investigate accusations leveled against the foundation by former Farm Center Director Robert McBroom, according to Borzenkova.

McBroom said repeatedly that he is still owed money by the foundation, according to the foundation’s chair Denise Robb.

The audit will go through 15 years of the foundation’s records to ensure a thorough examination of Farm Center documents, according to Pierce College President Kathleen Burke.

“In order to do that, you’d have to go back to when the Farm Center became involved,” Burke said.

The budget committee’s decision to increase the scope of the audit to cover the past 15 years is not just about McBroom’s allegations, but is part of a feud between the administration and the foundation, according to Borzenkova and Robb.

The Farm Center’s contract with the foundation didn’t begin until 2005, and “expired at least three or four years ago,” Borzenkova said.

That means that much of the 15year period covered by the audit will fall either before or after the Foundation’s involvement with the Farm Center.

“It was for five years we had a contract with them,” Borzenkova said. “Why is it [the audit] 15 years.”

Borzenkova said that the audit was initially a reasonable response to the allegations by McBroom, but that it became a much more complicated issue when the budget committee ordered that the audit look back through 15 years of the foundation’s records.

“It’s impossible to produce all the paperwork. Our retention policy goes back to seven years,” said Borzenkova. “After seven years, we destroy.”

The foundation oversees about $700,000 in funds and donations.

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