CONWAY — Access to grand-master keys such as the one police say the University of Central Arkansas’ former chief of staff, Jack Gillean, gave a student has been greatly tightened, UCA officials said Friday.

On getting such a key now or in the future, UCA President Tom Courtway said, “This is about the highest bar you’re going to have to clear on campus.”

Gillean, a longtime administrator who resigned abruptly June 15 and later was charged with four felonies, had approved his own key request forms even though he should have obtained approval from the university president, an internal audit found.

The three-member Audit Committee of the UCA board of trustees approved the 14-page audit report, which examined that security breach and other issues.

The report offered recommendations aimed at preventing security breaches and fraud - among them a fraud hot line, which officials hope to open next month. UCA Police Chief Larry James said the crime tip hot line will be combined with the new fraud hot line.

Gillean, a former deputy attorney general, is awaiting trial on three felony counts of commercial burglary, one felony count of fraudulent insurance acts and one misdemeanor count of issuing a false statement.

Courtway and Larry Lawrence, Physical Plant director, told the Audit Committee that they have reduced the number of employees who have grand-master keys because the only ones who truly need them are emergency responders such as police and some workers in the Physical Plant. Even then, the list of those given such keys will be routinely reviewed.

Lawrence said he could not recall how many people still have such keys but said, “There are not a lot. Many of us have turned them in, me included.”

The Physical Plant handles UCA keys and locks.

The grand-master key that Gillean is accused of giving to former student Cameron Stark provided access to almost all nonresidential buildings on campus.

“The grand-master key is basically the key to the campus,” Lawrence said.

Lawrence said that earlier Friday he had created for the first time a form to report any university-issued keys that are found. He said there already was a form for lost keys and information on stolen keys goes to the UCA Police Department. But there had not been a form for documenting found keys, he said.

In the spring of 2011, an employee found a key on the campus grounds, turned it in to UCA’s locksmith, who verified it belonged to Gillean and gave it to Lawrence who returned it to Gillean without any documentation, the audit found.

“I didn’t do anything differently than we’ve done for the last 24 years,” Lawrence said. In the past, the school had always treated a found key as if it were a wallet found and simply returned it to the owner.

Not until the fall of 2011 did Gillean report his grandmaster key as “lost,” Courtway has said. Even then,Gillean had indicated he had “looked extensively and planned on looking further” for it, the report related.

Authorities learned the location of that key, another Gillean key and his identification card that doubles as a key card shortly after a campus burglary about 1:30 a.m. on June 9. Police said a security video caught Stark burglarizing the financial aid office where, police said, Stark stole four prescription pills from employee Andrew Linn.

During questioning, police said Stark pulled two of Gillean’s keys from his pocket.

Stark, 24, was granted limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for cooperating with authorities.

The Audit Committee also focused in on a cost-of-attendance adjustment in financial aid that Linn approved in 2010 for a student.

UCA has marked out the names of all students identified in the audit report because of a federal privacy law, but the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette verified that the student getting the aid in this case was Stark, a former Marine.

The report said financial aid internal procedures already precluded an employee from giving such adjustments to relatives and have since been expanded to preclude employees for giving the aid to close personal friends as well.

Cheryl Lyons, Financial Aid director, said the new policy is that such cost-of attendance adjustments also will require the assistant director or director’s approval. Further, the requesting student is to submit a written request with documentation.

The report said Linn was “personally known” to this student - Stark - who reportedly told Linn that his car had been stolen and recovered with damaged wheels but did not provide a police report.

“When questioned about the lack of a police report in the file, Mr. Linn stated that he personally knew that this student’s car was stolen and did not drive properly after being recovered,” the report said.

Earlier this week, Linn submitted a police report, but the dates in it conflicted with information the financial-aid office already had, the report’s management response says.

Arkansas, Pages 11 on 12/08/2012