SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse: Controls over Some Hospital Expenses Could Be Improved. Report 92-S-50.

An audit was done of the Health Science Center, a teaching hospital in the State University of New York (SUNY) system at Syracuse. The audit addressed whether Syracuse has effective controls over selected payroll, equipment and inventory expenses. Syracuse reported an operating loss for 1990 of over $21 million dollars. The audit found that management's controls were not effective in ensuring that payments for certain payroll costs were reasonable and proper with the consequence that Syracuse may spend too much on staffing. To ensure that staff is available to meet patient needs, Syracuse uses an "on-call" and a "re-call" service. As a result of reviewing 499 employee timecards, the audit recommends that management implement better monitoring and control of on-call and re-call activities. Appendixes contain information on major contributors to the report, comments of SUNY officials, and State Comptroller's notes. (JB)