CSUN VOWS TO ASSIST PROBE.

Byline: Sharline Chiang Daily News Staff Writer

Speaking from Zimbabwe, where she is on vacation, CSUN President Blenda Wilson urged university officials to cooperate with a Federal Emergency Management Agency investigation into allegedly fraudulent billings, a campus spokesman said Thursday.

But Wilson did not comment on allegations that earthquake-repair laborers were paid from FEMA funds for overtime they did not work and for moving furniture from her husband's downtown office.

Louanne Kennedy, the vice president of academic affairs who is supervising California State University, Northridge, while Wilson is out of the country, called Wilson in Africa late Wednesday. It was the first time Wilson heard of the investigation, campus spokesman John Chandler said.

``Her general response was to ask that the university immediately conduct an audit of the two issues raised and that we also cooperate with FEMA in providing them with any information,'' Chandler said.

``There's been no indication whether she knew about the supposed move,'' he said.

The school's controller and campus police opened a formal investigation Thursday after officials conducted a more informal inquiry earlier in the week, Chandler said. Auditors from the California State University system will also be involved.

``The campus is reviewing what happened, and we're going to work with them and see what the results are going to be,'' said CSU spokesman Ken Swisher.

A FEMA official visited CSUN Tuesday asking for university records, Chandler said.

``We agreed to comply and provide them, but that hasn't been done yet,'' Chandler said.

Former laborer Desmond Cerceo, 31, of Northridge told the Daily News that he blew the whistle by complaining of the alleged billings to FEMA's hotline after he was laid off in April.

Chandler said the FEMA investigation seems to be focused on a November 1997 moving operation, when CSUN crews allegedly worked for Wilson's husband, Louis Fair, but were paid by the university from FEMA funds. On Wednesday, he acknowledged that a CSUN crew moved the furniture but said it was not clear how much, if any, of their pay came from FEMA funds.

The agency has reimbursed CSUN $240 million to demolish, renovate and repair campus buildings damaged by the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. Cerceo was one of nearly two dozen laborers who moved furniture in and out of buildings and cleaned up around construction sites.

Cerceo's supervisor, Terri Sigrist, denied Cerceo's allegations that she authorized fraudulent overtime billings. She said she authorized crew members to work on the private job for Fair, not realizing he is Wilson's husband. She said the crew was not paid from university or FEMA funds.