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| Charles G. Chaffin |
CHARLES
G. CHAFFIN has thirty-five years of auditing experience, first as an audit partner with Deloitte & Touche, and its predecessor firms, and as the internal audit director for The University of Texas System.
With an annual operating budget of $10 billion, the UT System is the second largest university system in the country. In his position at the UT System, Mr. Chaffin has responsibility for overseeing the internal audit departments of nine academic institutions, six health institutions, UTIMCO
(the university's investment company), and System Administration.
The nine academic institutions include UT Austin with almost 50,000 students, and eight other institutions throughout the state, which have a combined enrollment of over 125,000 students. The six health institutions include four medical schools, two dental schools, six hospitals, six physicians' practice plans, and numerous graduate programs. The individual audit departments range in size from one auditor to a staff of 18, at the largest institution. With a total staff of 125 auditors, Mr. Chaffin is responsible for developing and executing an annual internal audit plan consisting of over 150,000 audit hours.
Mr. Chaffin has been an innovator and leader in higher education auditing since joining the UT System in 1991. He was the individual primarily responsible for the UT System Internal Control Action Plans of 1994 and 1996, which established internal audit committees at each institution, mandated internal control and fraud training for the 2,000 individual department heads, and required proper segregation of duties and reconciliation of accounts in a decentralized environment. The implementation of these action plans allowed the UT System to easily adopt the "spirit" of Sarbanes-Oxley and its certification and sub-certifications voluntarily in 2003.
Following a medical billing failure at one of the health institutions in 1998, the Board of Regents implemented the first institutional compliance program in higher education. As one of the authors of the Action Plan to Ensure Institutional Compliance, Mr. Chaffin was charged with implementing the initial action items, which included establishing compliance committees at each institution, conducting compliance training, establishing hotlines, and performing compliance risk assessments.
In 2000, Mr. Chaffin assumed the additional duties of System-wide Compliance Officer for UT System. As such, he is responsible for apprising the Chancellor and the Board of Regents on the status of the System-wide program and the individual programs at the 15 institutions, UTIMCO, and System Administration. With physician and hospital billings, over $1 billion of federal research, research labs that contain select agents, NCAA athletic programs, 85,000 employees, numerous information technology systems that require state of the art security, and many billions of endowment dollars, the UT System compliance risks are significant. Following the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the System-wide compliance program has overseen the establishment of compliance officers, committees, training, risk assessments and monitoring plans, and assurance activities for each individual program. Mr. Chaffin was one of the co-authors of the book entitled Effective Compliance Systems: A Practical Guide for Educational Institutions, which is available through the Institute of Internal Auditors website.
Although the UT System was not required to follow the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Mr. Chaffin took responsibility for drafting the Action Plan to Implement the Spirit of Sarbanes Oxley. This led to the creation of the Board of Regents' stand-alone Audit, Compliance and Management Review Committee, the first independent financial statement audit of the UT System financial statements, and other features of the Act.
In 2006, following the disclosure of social security numbers at one of the academic institutions, the Chancellor created the position of Chief Information Security Officer, which reports to Mr. Chaffin, and is charged with implementing steps to strengthen information technology System-wide.
Mr. Chaffin is a frequent speaker at national conferences on the topics of internal auditing and institutional compliance for such organizations as the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), Association of College and University Auditors (ACUA), National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA), Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE), and the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA). He and his UT System colleagues have organized five national conferences on corporate compliance in higher education and one national conference on Sarbanes-Oxley in Higher Education.
In recognition of his contributions to the practice of internal auditing, ACUA honored Mr. Chaffin at their annual conference in September 2005 with the ACUA Professional Outstanding Contributions Award in recognition of his sustained outstanding contributions to the practice of internal auditing in higher education. He has held several positions with ACUA, the IIA, and other organizations.
Prior to joining the UT System in 1991, Mr. Chaffin was an audit partner with Deloitte & Touche in Houston, where he served clients in banking, healthcare, and education for 18 years. In addition, he was responsible for recruiting students throughout the American Southwest including his alma mater, The University of Texas at Austin. He has been married for over 40 years, and has four children and four grandchildren. He holds a bachelor of business administration degree in accounting from UT Austin and a master of accountancy degree from the University of South Florida. He served two years in the US Army, including a year in Viet Nam.
Email: cchaffin@utsystem.edu
System Audit Office
201 West 7th Street
CLB 3.100
Austin, Texas 78701
Phone: (512) 499-4390
Fax: (512) 499-4426
