There was good news and bad in a much-delayed financial audit of Florida A&M University’s 2004-5 fiscal year that was released late Monday, according to an article in today’s Tallahassee Democrat. On the one hand, the draft audit said, $95-million worth of transactions were improperly accounted for in the university’s books, and millions of dollars in other accounts could not be reconciled. On the other hand, the audit found a small budget surplus in 2004-5.

Because it concerns a fiscal year that ended almost a year ago, the audit does not provide a good sense of how much progress the university has made since its board fired its president nearly two year ago (The Chronicle, September 30, 2004). But audits conducted early last year (The Chronicle, February 28, 2005) suggested a far more dire situation than the one released this week, and the university’s interim president, Castell Bryant, took credit for straightening out the university’s finances.