The report, released last week, looked at the financial statement audits of the state's 10 public universities in 2020, and made three "high-risk" findings overall.

Two relate to CSU, whilst the third involves the University of New South Wales.

The report comes after the regional university laid off hundreds of jobs in 2020 and cut around 600 subjects to deal with a $49 million budget black hole, which it said was exacerbated by the pandemic's impact on international student enrolments.

The findings refer to the university 'Misunderstanding' a 'New accounting standard', as well as an investigation into staff under and over payments.

"A reassessment of the underlying agreements supporting two funded projects resulted in the University adjusting its financial statements to ... recognise an additional $34.5 million in revenue for 2020," the report said.

It recommended the university address the cause of the mistake and "put in place controls for sign-offs by the operational, legal and accounting teams so that the risks related to contracts are known prior to execution".

Meanwhile the University of New South Wales was given one 'High-risk' finding in relation to its ongoing work to rectify underpayment of casual employees.

'Greatly improved financial position'

In response, a CSU spokesperson said it had achieved a 'Greatly improved financial position' over the past year and had reduced the forecast deficit by $34 million since the start of 2020, to a final operating figure of $15.5 million.

The spokesperson said the report's finding related to the 'Iinterpretation of changes in accounting standards for one-off grants for capital works'.

It is understood the matter mainly related to expansion work recently completed at the Port Macquarie campus.

Additionally, the audit referred to a draft report by an external consultant that has identified "instances of under and overpayment of staff", and recommended CSU investigate the extent of underpayments and introduce preventative measures.

The CSU spokesperson said this draft report had been undertaken of its own volition, due to underpayment in the sector more broadly.

They said the review was ongoing, but there was no evidence of staff underpayment at the university.

Better news for CSU

In better news for the university, the audit also found its postgraduate and undergraduate students were beating the national averages for employment.

Indigenous student enrolments had increased by more than 11% to more than 1200, making it the largest cohort in the state, while overall enrolments were down about 2.4% on the previous year.

Research income and philanthropic revenue were also down, by 25% and 53.7% respectively.

Story By | Mollie Gorman