A state audit finds some of the money collected for a special train that takes football passengers to Kinnick Stadium never made it to the bank. State Auditor Marry Mosiman audited the records of the Hawkeye express that runs from Coralville to the stadium on game days. “The request for this audit did come from the University of Iowa based on their internal audit and we did find where there were two games in which no deposits were made by the university for riders of their Hawkeye Express and a third game where only a portion of the deposits were made,” Mosiman says.
None of the money from the rides was deposited for the games against Tennessee Tech and Michigan State on September 3, 2011 and November 12, 2011, and only part of the collections were deposited for the September 24, 2011 game against the University of Louisiana-Monroe. That added up to almost $75,000. “We estimated 74,200 of the two games with no deposits and a third game with a partial deposit not taking place,” Mosiman says.
She says the U-I Athletic Department is in charge of handling the money for the train. “It is part of their rules or procedures that they make their deposits timely, and in various situations the deposits were not made timely, so that is part of our recommendations that proceeds from each game’s ridership is made in a timely manner,” Mosiman says.
The audit included other suggestions for how the money from the train should be handled. “Copies of our report have been filed with the Board of Regents Office of Internal Audit, the University’s Department of Public Safety, DCI, the Johnson County Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office,” Mosiman says. She says those officials will have to investigate to determine where the money went and if there was wrongdoing involved.