North Carolina’s State Board of Community Colleges has decided to monitor the colleges more closely after damaging audits showed that baseball players at one college had been paid inappropriately and that a president at a second college was using public money for personal expenses.

The new rules, which the board approved in May and is now carrying out, prohibit presidential contracts that automatically roll over, require colleges to submit to stricter audits, and mandate more training for business-office workers, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times. The state board also plans to review the bylaws and policies of the state’s 58 community colleges to ensure they comply with state law.

At least one member of a college’s board decried the additional oversight, saying it would prevent colleges from moving quickly to meet community needs. “I think that it’s inappropriate,” Mary Ann Engle, board vice president at Blue Ridge Community College, in Flat Rock, N.C., told the Citizen-Times.

The paper reported that the state board’s decision had been sparked by an audit of Blue Ridge that found, among other things, that baseball players had been given $35,000 in work-study payments during a 31-month period, in some cases for work they did not do.

That audit was released in January, on the heels of an October 2005 audit that found that the president of Halifax Community College, in Weldon, N.C., had taken $12,000 in questionable insurance claims and $3,000 in questionable travel expenses. The president, who was fired, also had the college’s auto shop work on his car.