BATON ROUGE - Legislative Auditor Dan Kyle had high praise Thursday for the aid and cooperation provided to his staff by officials at Grambling State University where multiple audits are under way.

In an appearance before a committee of the University of Louisiana System board, Kyle said he sent a team of forensic auditors to Grambling upon learning of possible thefts there.

Responding to criticism about slowness in reporting allegations of theft uncovered by GSU officials, Kyle stressed that the allegations were reported to him by President Neari Warner after they were discovered by her staff.

"The law that requires that to be reported to me is new. I have no problem with the manner in which that was reported and I wanted you to know that," he told the finance committee of the ULS Board of Supervisors.

Additionally, he said, "I'm very impressed with the work of your internal auditors."

In addition to investigating the alleged thefts, Kyle has auditing staff on campus conducting a financial audit of the past two budget years.

Grambling is under threat of loss of accreditation if it cannot provide acceptable financial records to college accrediting officials.

"We are cautiously optimistic about the audit at Grambling State University," Kyle said.

He said school financial officers have said they believe they can provide legislative auditors with records for the 2001-02 fiscal year by July 15, just more than two weeks after close of the fiscal year.

He said, however, the amount of work necessary to accomplish the feat is enormous and it would be impressive if Grambling financial staff members can complete their work by the July 15 deadline.

Still, he said it is possible the work will be done on time.

"Depending on when we can get the field work completed, generally the university is given two weeks to respond (to findings)," he said.

Based upon that timeline, he said it is possible the ULS board could have a completed financial audit within the next few weeks.

Robbie Robinson, head of Kyle's financial audit section, said, "(GSU financial officer) Billy Owens and his staff are doing a wonderful job. What you have to realize is that we are dealing with years of problems."

ULS Supervisor Charles Teamer said, "I appreciate the term 'cautiously optimistic' because so many times we haven't even had that much."

Meanwhile, Kyle had nothing new to report on financial conditions at the University of Louisiana at Monroe were other financial problems have occurred.

He said, "We're focusing on Grambling right now and when we finish there we'll do the same thing at Monroe."