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Post by DOOMS on Jun 2, 2007 8:49:24 GMT -5
Hell, I can understand how she didn't know. People embezzle every day. Let's not pretend it's all that easy to catch someone stealing.
That being said the board isn't exactly inspiring a lot of confidence in people right now.
Hey, is Lanita Withers fine?
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Post by aggiejazz on Jun 2, 2007 9:25:36 GMT -5
I am saying again I have little confidence in the incoming Chancellor, Dr. Battle. I can't see hiring a person who did not complete a rebuilding process at his current institution. I could see hiring someone similar to NCCU Chancellor who just left and who can provide detailed results of a top adminstrator improving a university over a number of years.
The only thing I heard that was positive about Battle is that Coppin State received more state money. Was it just due to Battle or was it a push by the state legislators to increase funding to all its universities and colleges? Especially Maryland governor deciding to take special care to fund those institutions that had been neglected in past budgets ala HBCUs in NC in the last education bond initiative.
I can tell you one thing the athletic programs at Coppin State didn't improve while he was there and financial accountability is still a big problem at Coppin State.
I don't blame Renick for certain embezzlements that went on but having federal programs run into the ground over time with no accoutablilty is Renick's fault along with his vice-chancellors who are at fault.
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Post by DOOMS on Jun 2, 2007 10:00:32 GMT -5
From what little I know Battle was the impetus in Coppin receiving additional funding. I don't think he was at Coppin long enough to actually implement too many improvements. We're talking about a school that had been neglected for decades. One thing I admire is he didn't simply cut and run. He took responsibility for Coppin's shortcomings and he addressed and has implemented repairs for each shortcoming.
On the other side of the coin from what I can see Battle couldn't give two ishts about athletics. But keep in mind that Fort didn't care much about athletics either. We experienced the worst football and basketball teams in school history under or as a direct result of Renick, who still attends A&T football games. So it's not always in the best interests of the school to have a Chancellor that's a big time booster. If Battle is simply a "here's the money you asked for, now leave me alone and if your teams don't produce you are fired" guy we are very lucky.
There's an old saying: Isht rolls downhill. What's amazing about the properties of isht is that in this case it ran downhill and then went chasing after the people that shat it out in the first place.
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Post by DOOMS on Jun 2, 2007 10:00:56 GMT -5
P.S. Is Lanita Withers fine? Somebody get a pic.
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Post by Bigboy on Jun 4, 2007 9:56:09 GMT -5
Well we did win 2 MEAC championships in football under Renick even though we did have a few really bad seasons. The one thing that did happen by having him as a "booster" is the improvements to our facilities including the renovation of the gym. Let's wait and see what kind of practical things Battle will do for athletics.
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Maxell
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Post by Maxell on Jun 4, 2007 11:28:57 GMT -5
Hell, I can understand how she didn't know. People embezzle every day. Let's not pretend it's all that easy to catch someone stealing. That being said the board isn't exactly inspiring a lot of confidence in people right now. Hey, is Lanita Withers fine? Ask her. Contact Lanita Withers at 373-7071 or lwithers@news-record.com
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Post by DOOMS on Jun 4, 2007 11:45:02 GMT -5
Oh yeah, forgot to tell y'all. I already checked her out.
hmmmmmm... She's a'ight. Nothing to write five articles about but she a'ight.
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Post by krazykev on Jun 6, 2007 8:43:07 GMT -5
A&T: Audit shouldn’t hurt grants
Article By Lanita Withers and Taft Wireback
GREENSBORO — Internal auditors at N.C. A&T found two cases of federal grant abuse that totaled more than $600,000 and spawned two criminal investigations.
But administrators say they doubt the infractions will hurt the university's ability to secure future funding — as long as A&T cleans up the problems that allowed the abuse to occur.
"Will it affect us in getting money? Probably not if we handle it right," said N. Radhakrishnan, A&T's vice chancellor for research and economic development. "If we're forthright with the agency, and so far we have been."
In cases of misappropriation, said Harold Martin, the senior vice president for academic affairs with the UNC system, government agencies typically look to see how a campus responds to the abuse.
"There is an effort to ensure that once something has been detected as a problem, the organization has taken aggressive steps to fix those concerns," he said.
Federal agencies want to ensure that institutions are good stewards of the public's money, said Gail Vertz, executive director for the American Association of Grant Professionals.
"The biggest thing is we're all taxpayers," Vertz said. "Whether it's state or federal, tax dollars are being expended, and we all want them expended in an ethical way."
With nearly $40 million in funding last year, A&T brought in the third-highest amount of external funding in the UNC system, behind UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State. Grant money funds a variety of academic research at A&T, such as work in climate and weather, food safety and submarine accuracy. The university is classified as a "high research activity" institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Systemwide, two-thirds of external funding comes from federal grants. Other money comes from state and local government; business and industry; and associations, foundations and other not-for-profit organizations. A breakdown of A&T's top funders was not available as of Tuesday.
A&T's auditors questioned $500,000 in spending from an Office of Naval Research Grant in the College of Engineering and recommended a criminal investigation to see if fraud occurred. The former administrator of the grant, Anna Anita Huff, drew fire in the audit for approving a large stipend for her husband, who was a fellow in the program, and expensive travel and accommodations for him and other family members.
A former administrative assistant in the School of Agriculture, Marlena Joyce Dillon, pleaded guilty in January to charges connected with the misuse of another federal grant. The audit reports that the total loss for the university was $101,447, with less than half of that amount recovered from insurance. Restitution to the university was a condition of Dillon's guilty plea.
A&T is responsible for repaying about $550,000 in mismanaged money.
The audit also found the university almost two years behind in required reporting to the federal Office of Management and Budget.
It's too early to say how the recent audit might affect A&T's relationship with the Office of Naval Research, the federal agency behind the Future Engineering Faculty Fellowship that was criticized in the audit, ONR spokesman Jim Boyle said.
"We can't comment on any aspect at this point because we're just beginning to sort through the whole thing," Boyle said of the audit.
The ONR grant provides stipends to doctoral candidates in engineering who plan to teach at historically black colleges and universities.
Don Ralbovsky, a spokesman for the National Institutes of Health, one of the top three external funders for the UNC system, said that in general the agency will work with a school to find an appropriate resolution.
"NIH contacts the institution and works as closely as we can to ascertain the facts and determine an early and effective resolution that's in the best interest to the taxpayers of the U.S.," Ralbovsky said.
The university plans to develop a comprehensive training program to address some of the audit's findings, as well as update policies and procedures to ensure compliance. It is also assessing the level of staffing in the contracts and grants department to see if it is sufficient to manage the increased volume of grant awards. Authorizing documents signed with a signature stamp will no longer be accepted.
A nearby college bears testimony to success after audit findings involving federal money. Randolph Community College worked through a series of bad audits involving federal money during the past few years but emerged without lasting setbacks, said the school's new president, Robert S. Shackleford Jr.
State and federal auditors raised serious questions about the school's handling of federal student aid in reports issued last year and in 2005. But the college made some changes in personnel and policy that satisfied regulators and paid back the government money that had been misapplied.
Things are back to normal at the school these days, and its students' ability to get federal aid continued without interruption, Shackleford said.
"Our most recent financial audit was excellent with no reportable findings," he said. "The community stood by the college, knew who we were and what we were, and we're stronger today because of it."
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Post by krazykev on Jun 7, 2007 6:16:31 GMT -5
A&T official: Audit is way off
Print Email this Article By Taft Wireback and Lanita Withers
The amount of money N.C. A&T misspent from a grant by the U.S. Office of Naval Research will be "significantly less" than the $500,000 initially questioned by state auditors, the school's chief financial officer says.
The federal agency's program for doctoral candidates in engineering was highlighted in a critical audit recently released by financial investigators from the UNC system working with A&T's internal auditors.
"As we review what constitutes an authorized transaction (in the ONR program), that number is being reduced daily," Vice Chancellor Willie T. Ellis Jr. said of the audit's $500,000 figure. "At the end of the day, it won't be close to $500,000 or $250,000, not even close."
The audit raised questions about the ONR program's supervision by university officials, including charges of negligence, nepotism, forgery, lax financial controls and money misspent on unnecessary stipends, excessive travel expenses and missing equipment.
Meanwhile, an attorney for the ONR grant's fired program manager gave her first public response to the critical findings, saying that Anna Anita Huff, of Greensboro, "denies any wrongdoing."
"Everything she did had to be approved by people within the university and by people in the Department of the Navy," Greensboro lawyer Romallus O. Murphy said. "She was not the top dog. The administration of one of these federal programs has many checks and balances."
The grant is a national program administered by A&T that helps doctoral candidates in engineering who agree to teach at historically black colleges or universities after they receive their degrees. Its formal name is the Future Engineering Faculty Fellowship program.
There is no conflict between the audit's initial findings and Ellis' effort to scrutinize further what the UNC system's auditors called "questioned costs" within the ONR program, said Jeff Davies, the chief of staff for UNC General Administration."I think the key word is 'questioned,' " Davies said. "It is completely feasible in my view that he is taking the audit and doing this further work with it."
At some point, there will have to be an agreement among A&T, the ONR and the State Bureau of Investigation on a final figure for damages suffered by the state and federal governments as a result of mismanagement, Davies said.
"I would be delighted if it is significantly less, considering that it's something that should never have happened in the first place," Davies said.
The audit slammed Huff for approving inflated stipends for her husband, who was a fellow in the program she supervised during the 2005-06 fiscal year.
It also said that Huff stayed at "high-priced hotels" when traveling on grant business, hired and supervised one of her daughters as a student worker in the ONR office, and paid travel expenses to "one or both of her daughters to attend conferences in Jamaica, California, Nevada and Pennsylvania." The audit also said Huff "forged" the signatures of other A&T officials on a variety of documents.
Ellis said that because it is a continuing investigation, he did not want to discuss in detail what his staff is finding as it probes further into the ONR situation.
But he said a report the university filed last week with the SBI was linked directly to the ONR grant.
Last week's report to the SBI said A&T potentially had lost $131,000 more in "university assets" than the $12,000 in missing ONR-program equipment initially reported to state government late last year.
The SBI report deals with a total of $143,000 in state property or money that might have been misused by the ONR program in ways ranging from improper spending to lost, stolen or missing equipment.
Ellis said that money is included in the $500,000 mentioned as questionable in the initial report by the UNC system, which tracked possible misuse of money from both state and federal sources.
Like the audit's $500,000 figure, the amount reported to the SBI is probably significantly higher than what the final, confirmed amount will be, he said.
Ellis said he purposely estimated the SBI update on the high side.
"From a financial standpoint, I'm going to be conservative and make sure that we cover all the potential (loss)," Ellis said.
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Post by DOOMS on Jun 7, 2007 6:21:18 GMT -5
Is it me or am I basically reading the same article over again with a new paragraph added every day.
This reminds me of the 2002 football season.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Jun 7, 2007 10:00:26 GMT -5
I guess this last article was the N&R's attempt to write a somewhat positive story about A&T's audit.
They should just quit while they are behind.
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Post by Bigboy on Jun 7, 2007 10:55:59 GMT -5
You are right Doom, this should have been over after the first artical they ran on this story. Actually it is no different than the story that came out a few months ago when they fired Harrigan. It has gotten really old!!!
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Post by Tee-Sharp on Jun 9, 2007 7:10:00 GMT -5
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