With the legislative auditor saying he can’t legally audit two private student loan agencies, directors of one of the entities voted Wednesday to furnish copies of its past audits to the Board of Regents.

“Can we offer the board the right to review our financial and performance audits by third parties?” asked Mark Semmens of Great Falls, a director of the Montana Higher Education Student Assistance Corp.

Jim Stipcich, president and chief executive officer of MHESAC’s business manager, Student Assistance Foundation called it “a great idea.”

Semmens, a former regent, said it shows the MHESAC directors are “trying to be responsive to their requests.”

“Our desire is to be helpful,” Semmens said. He said providing the audits would help “continue the dialogue” between the board and regents. Three regents also serve on the MHESAC board.

The MHESAC board voted unanimously during a conference call meeting to furnish these past financial and performance audits to the regents, probably at their meeting in Havre later this month.

Last month, the Board of Regents voted 5-2 to ask the Legislative Auditor’s Office to conduct a performance audit of MHESAC and SAF.

However, Legislative Auditor Scott Seacat said last week he couldn’t spend state funds auditing SAF and MHESAC because they are private entities, not state agencies.

Regent Todd Buchanan, a Billings financial adviser, had sought the legislative performance audit, saying he was frustrated by not getting information he wanted from the two student loan groups.

At the regents’ April 29 meeting, Buchanan said he had lost confidence in SAF’s and MHESAC’s leadership. He said SAF and MHESAC leaders, in a conference call in late 2007, “arrogantly said there is no (financial) risk,” which Buchanan said has proven incorrect.

Buchanan, who isn’t on the MHESAC board, had no comment Wednesday.

The student loan industry in Montana and nationally has been rocked with turmoil in recent months.

Although MHESAC has $175 million in financing in place for loans to Montana students in the 2008-09 school year, the availability of money in future years is uncertain. MHESAC has been caught up in the national credit and liquidity crunch, and auctions for nearly all of its $1.3 billion of auction bond notes previously issued by MHESAC have failed several times since Feb. 11. MHESAC is hoping to restructure its financing and waiting to see what a recently passed federal law will do.

SAF last month laid off 23 employees and quit consolidating loans for students.

Meanwhile, Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester, have sent a list of specific questions they want MHESAC and SAF to answer about their investments and operations.

Stipcich said the staff has put together draft responses, with appendices, and are putting them in final form to send to the senators, Gov. Brian Schweitzer and the Board of Regents in the coming weeks.

“It’s been a tremendous undertaking by a lot of people,” he said.

Semmens said the drafts he’s seen were “well done, very thorough and very responsive.”

“Frankly, I think it will be very helpful to continuing the dialogue and correcting some of the misstatements,” Semmens said.

Schweitzer’s administration has been trying to bring MHESAC and SAF under state open meetings laws and to require legislative audits of the two organizations. An administration bill, sponsored by Rep. John Musgrove, D-Havre, to do so was killed in the House.

MHESAC and SAF have since opened up their meetings and published their agendas, although they are not subject to legislative agendas.

Rep. Dan Villa, D-Anaconda, has said he will sponsor a similar bill to Musgrove’s bill in the 2009 Legislature.