ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Ohio University’s Internal Audit and Office of Legal Affairs will see small but significant changes if the Board of Trustees approves proposed resolutions today and at its spring meeting.
General Counsel John Biancamano presented a new signature authority plan to the Audit Committee, which, if approved, would simplify the way OU approves legal documents.
The current system separates documents into 12 different locations, Biancamano said. The new plan would send all documents through the president’s office to one of four or five delegates who would then approve the documents.
“This is the beginning of a much larger effort toward rationalizing our legal document review process,” Biancamano said.
Biancamano plans to present a resolution detailing the changes to the Board for approval at its next meeting in April.
The Audit Committee also heard a presentation from Chief Audit Executive Kathryn Gilmore on proposed amendments to Internal Audit’s charter.
Gilmore presented five proposed amendments to the charter. The first two were additions to the text of the charter and added professionalism standards and periodic quality assurance reporting.
Another amendment removes the charter’s requirement for the chief audit executive to communicate to OU administrators through formal correspondence. Gilmore said this requirement was unnecessary and impractical since they already communicate at meetings.
The fourth proposed amendment allows the chief audit executive to distribute final audit reports to “relevant administrators … as deemed appropriate, to reflect actual practice,” Gilmore said.
Finally, Gilmore proposed the addition of the phrase “consistent with Ohio law and the Open Meetings Act” to the section of the charter describing the annual executive sessions Internal Audit is required to hold with the Board of Trustees. This change is to specify that “executive sessions only are held for reasons consistent with the Open Meetings Act,” Gilmore said.
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