Both Bramble and Lockhart said that last spring Utah County GOP leaders thought it would be nice if the county party had a float for summer parades. The question then was where to get a "beat up old car" to be the chassis of the float, said Lockhart. After a car was donated, said Lockhart, "then we had to figure out how to build" a float.

The idea came up that maybe it could be a project for an MATC welding class.

"That was all I did," Bramble said. "I simply asked if they (MATC) ever did a class project. ... I saw it as a potential for a welding project for the class."

Lockhart said she and Bramble told state auditors they offered to pay for the work. Lockhart said she never expected or wanted the work to be done for free.

"I told Clay no discounts, no favors, we'd pay the total, full cost ... and I personally offered to write a check both before and after" the work was done, she said.

Labor costs were billed to the college, but it was found the college did not pay for the 29 hours of instructor work on the project. In his response, Brems says the costs were paid by a private donor and not the college, but the audit cited Christensen for a "disregard for the law."

The audit report says a second material weakness found within the MATC pertains to a "questionable transition package" offered to Brems when he left MATC to become UCAT president. The early retirement package, totaling $157,782, was approved by the MATC Board of Directors even though Brems didn't qualify for early retirement, the report says.

According to a response by Rich Kendell, commissioner of higher education, Brems had worked nearly 28 years in state employment, mostly as a career and technical education teacher and administrator in the public K-12 system, with his last four years as campus president of the MATC. Kendell said when the UCAT president job was offered to Brems, he was told retirement was handled through an entirely different system and benefits previously earned would no longer apply.

Brems also contributed nearly $40,000 of his transition package payment to a campus foundation to establish an endowment in his name, providing scholarships to students meeting criteria set by Brems and his wife. Since this third transaction, made in the form of a check paid by the campus to the foundation, two students have been awarded money from the endowment that was used at an institution other than MATC. Both students were family members of Brems, the audit report says.