Audit dings U. of Maryland worker payout

A state audit has found that a former employee of the University System of Maryland’s largely online degree program was paid nearly $300,000 in violation of policy.

Employees who leave a position involuntarily can collect up to a year’s pay, depending on how long a worker has held a job, but employees who resign cannot, according to the university system’s official rules.

The audit of the University of Maryland University College, recently renamed the University of Maryland Global Campus, was part of a regular review done by the state’s Office of Legislative Audits.

It found an employee who resigned was paid $292,000 for 11 months of work. Based on the employee’s length of employment, the worker would have been due only 9 months of pay.

While the auditors recommended the college seek to recover the payments, school officials said they will not do that because there was not a violation of policy as the employee was allowed to resign instead of being terminated. Further, campus officials said that the policy doesn’t apply to employees at high levels. School officials said the language in the policy has been clarified for future employees.

In other areas, auditors found that campus did not have a process to independently verify whether students should be granted military residency status.

The status dictates how much the students pay in tuition. Those in the military pay $250 per undergraduate credit compared with the $499 a credit rate for out-of-state students. In-state tuition was about the same as the military rate. Records show in fiscal 2018, the campus’ tuition revenue was almost $330.7 million, of which $51.3 million was for students with military status. About 22% of students were classified as military. Campus officials said they would periodically review the documentation for military status.

The last issue found in the audit had to do with computer security, including a lack of protections from malware. Campus officials disagreed with the report’s finding that its approximately 2,400 computers were not sufficiently protected.