Pennsylvania Institutions Sign Self-Audit Agreement With EPA

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January 25, 2005

More than two dozen independent institutions in Pennsylvania recently signed a self-audit agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The agreement encourages voluntary disclosure of violations found through compliance self-audits, which substantially reduces or eliminates the likelihood that a participating institution will be fined for failing to comply with environmental regulations. Agreements such as this are possible through an audit policy developed at the national level in 2000 that encourages discovery, disclosure, correction of environmental violations, and establishing systems to maintain environmental compliance.

So far, 27 of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania's 83 institutions have agreed to take part in the program. A professional environmental auditor will train personnel from the participating institutions to perform as peer reviewers to assess problems, report them to authorities, and help identify solutions. Timothy C. Alexander, the associations's vice president for finance and administration, said that the self-audits will help "schools save a lot of money because they aren't hiring a professional consultant to do the audit."

For more information, visit EPA's Region 3 Website.