MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The West Virginia University fiscal year 2019 audit has been completed and for the eighth straight year there were no deficiencies.
WVU Vice President of Finance/CFO Paula Congelio said the net position for the university increased by $6.4 million and the financial health of the balance sheet remains strong.
“We had an increase in cash of about $34 million,” Congelio said. “Our assets have increased, our cash has improved and our days cash on-hand continues to improve. From a balance sheet perspective, we’re continuing to be strong.”
The audit report was delivered at Friday’s WVU Board of Governors meeting in Morgantown.
Congelio said by keeping supply and service costs low expenses for the university have only increased by about two percent since 2016.
“Since 2016 our expenses have only grown 2.7 percent or $30 million,” Congelio said. “We felt that was extraordinarily good since we did have investments in salaries.”
Fiscal Year 2019 revenues were $1.1 billion, down $8.7 million from 2018. The two largest sources of income were tuition, fees, gifts and grants.
Assets of the WVU Research Corporation increased by $2.8 million to $137.3 million in fiscal year 2019. WVU secured more than $181 million in sponsored program funding and was recertified by the Carnegie Foundation as a R1 Doctoral University-Highest Research Activity making it one of the 130 strongest research institutions in the country.
Associate Vice President for finance Anjali Halabe said the strong audit performance keeps WVU very competitive.
“Internal controls over our policies, procedures and processes are very robust,” Halabe said. “We are constantly looking for weaknesses internally so we can work on them and the use those internal controls to ensure things are working well.”