{"id":245988,"date":"2026-04-01T01:43:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/245988\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T01:43:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:43:06","slug":"fresno-state-foundation-taking-corrective-actions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/245988\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresno State Foundation taking corrective actions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fresno State Foundation<\/a>, which manages $315 million in endowment and grant money for the university, has spelled out planned reforms<\/a> to address serious lapses in its financial processes that were highlighted in a 32-page report from the CSU Chancellors Office.<\/p>\n

The foundation, which has its own audit committee, allowed the same individual to submit and approve multimillion dollar wire transfers. That same person, who was not identified by name in the report by CSU Audit and Advisory Services, was also granted access within the financial system to post transactions, revise vendor records and process payments.<\/p>\n

Infrequent bank reconciliations, some of which were performed by that same individual, created significant opportunities<\/a> for unauthorized or undetected activity, the advisory review found.<\/p>\n

As part of its remediation plan, the foundation is now requiring all bank accounts to be reconciled at least monthly and requiring the dates and signatures of the preparer and reviewer for all reconciliations. It also has established a process for reviewing and assigning roles and responsibilities in alignment with proper segregation of duties for account reconciliations.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs with all CSU auxiliaries, oversight is ongoing and grounded in established policies and periodic reviews,\u201d a CSU spokesperson said. \u201cWe will continue to engage with Fresno State as it carries out its implementation plan, consistent with systemwide practices and our shared goal of serving students and communities effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CSU identified 46 governance and operational deficiencies in the advisory review report released in January. The CSU did not find any evidence of malfeasance in the review, which examined foundation operations over the 2024 fiscal year. But it stated in its report that weaknesses in core financial processes left the foundation \u201cvulnerable to financial and reputational risk.\u201d It also concluded that the weaknesses could \u201chinder its ability to safeguard its assets and impacts its ability to support the university\u2019s missions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, the foundation\u2019s governance structure was not fully aligned with applicable state laws or requirements, according to the CSU review.<\/p>\n

One example: The Foundation board treasurer, Kyle Stephenson, has served as the audit committee chair since 2021-22, despite a state law that prohibits officers or staff of the auxiliary organization from serving on the audit committee, according to the CSU review. The Fresno State Foundation audit committee charter also states: \u201cThe Audit Committee shall be comprised of not less than four members, none of which shall be an officer of the Board of Governors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Board officials including chair Vinci Ricchiuti have declined comment to The Fresno Bee on the CSU review. The board largely avoided discussing it<\/a> last week at its first meeting since it was released in January, and Ricchiuti declined comment to The Bee after the meeting. Fresno State president Sa\u00fal Jim\u00e9nez-Sandoval, the only university employee who sits on the foundation board of governors, also declined comment after the meeting.<\/p>\n

The CSU review was initiated by Jim\u00e9nez-Sandoval after the foundation was found to be misinterpreting the Nonprofit Integrity Act of 2004, a state law that increased oversight and accountability of non-profit organizations.<\/p>\n

A lack of oversight and accountability on a board with little member turnover \u2014 five members have served for 20 or more years and the chair has held the position since 2016-17 \u2014 contributed to the foundation\u2019s weaknesses, according to the CSU and experts interviewed by The Fresno Bee.<\/p>\n

Mary Kay Delvo, a strategist, governance professional and founder of INspiringSIGHT, a Minneapolis\/St. Paul based strategic consulting firm, told The Bee in January that fresh eyes on the board, through required board member turnover, were essential to good governance.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurnover of board members allows for new eyes, new perspectives, new questions,\u201d Delvo said. \u201cWhen you have the same people, it gets stagnant and things get overlooked. The board\u2019s primary role is to direct and protect the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fresno State Foundation is to address three additional issues within its financial practices that were exposed by the CSU review by the spring, and six by the fall.<\/p>\n

The foundation, according to the CSU review, also had not implemented an adequate internal control structure over the reconciliation of 22 operating and investment accounts, which increased the risk of fraud, misappropriation of funds and a delayed detection of errors.<\/p>\n

Trust account agreements were not always renewed in accordance with its trust account policy. The foundation also maintained high balances in total campus programs and trust accounts that may not have been spent promptly, raising concerns about the timely fulfillment of donor intent.<\/p>\n

The foundation\u2019s reserve policy was not based on actual or budgeted expenditures, limiting assurance that reserve balances were appropriately sized to support operations.<\/p>\n

It did not consistently document or report cumulative surplus balances, reducing transparency and limiting the ability to assess and plan for future spending.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fresno Bee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fresno State Foundation, which manages $315 million in endowment and grant money for the university, has spelled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1820,21998,6386,112,114,113,742,15060],"class_list":["post-245988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-cal-state","tag-financial","tag-foundation","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-fresno-state","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}