The University of Baltimore did not account for nearly $200,000 that state records showed the school had in cash balances, according to an audit released Monday.

The discrepancy between the school’s and state’s records has persisted for several years and been pointed out on three consecutive state audit reports. This year’s audit of the school’s finances for the past three years details 10 other problems.

"The university had a cash balance of about $10.7 million, according to the comptroller's records; the university's records indicated it had only about $10.5 million.

It is not unusual for such accounting differences to show up on school audits, but the university’s failure to resolve it raises questions, said Bruce Myers, the state’s legislative auditor.

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“The fact that there’s 11 items and a couple of them are repeated, it’s a little worse than a lot of the schools we have audited,” Myers said.

“It’s a basic control process, so it’s kind of disappointing. They point to the new system they got back in ’03 — well, that’s five years ago.”

The university has attributed the confusion to its switch in June 2003 to a new automated system for reconciling finances, but was unable to provide auditors with documentation to back up the explanation.

The school is scrutinizing its records line-by-line to determine the cause of the differences, according to a letter from William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, in response to the audit.

msilvestri@baltimoreexaminer.com