HOW WE SEE IT: Overspending At UA Shows Controls Needed

When it comes to the University of Arkansas, we’ve been told by a couple of folks, it’s diff cult, very diffcult, to get fi red.

Of course, people do get fired there, but an employee told us one time an institutional inertia keeps some who would have been axed at private enterprises on the college’s payroll.

The comment stuck with us, but we never gave it much serious thought until after public revelation onDec. 3 that the Division of Advancement had overspent its budget by $3.1 million.

In many, perhaps most, organizations, such a discovery would lead to someone joining the unemployment line involuntarily.

Not so at the UA. Brad Choate, the vice chancellor for advancement, has been ordered to give up all his administrative oversight, but he’ll get to keep his $348,175-a-year job until appointment ends on June 30. Another employee, the budget offcer Choate appears to blame for the discrepancies, kept a job at the UA, too, albeit through a reassignment. Joy Sharp was moved to Human Resources in a nonbudgeting job, her salary reduced from $91,086 to $68,314.

Chancellor David Gearhart has said he will not renew the pair’s appointments at mid-year. We suppose that’s close to a firing, after the university has shelled out another $200,000 in salaries to the unfi red.

Firing someone at an Arkansas university can be a bit messy. Such action generally opens their personnel files to public inspection, at least insofar as it relates to the actions that led to their terminations. Keeping them on the payroll allows the avoidance of certain unpleasantness.

The UA clearly went to extensive eftorts to keep the entire episode from being revealed to the public.

Public relations are important. We get that. But you can’t have the “relations” without the “public” if you are to live up to ideals of transparency. The public and donors are right to expect an institution it supports to operate more eft ectively than demonstrated by this troublesome scenario.

Most importantly in this unusual chain of events, there is an opportunity for the UA to recognize its internal checks and balances didn’t check and didn’t balance. That is a worrisome thing for a public institution that is entrusted with taxpayer dollars and the money generously given in support of the UA’s educational mission.

Nobody misused any money, as far as anyone can tell. The money was spent on legitimate advancement work. The powers-that-should-havebeen simply kept spending well beyond their authority and, once someone balanced out the books, there were far more questions left than dollars.

Every department of the UA has needs to fi ll and opportunities to be pursued that must wait simply because the money isn’t there. Their leaders all know about prioritizing needs to match available resources.

Gearhart was rightly shocked with the shortfall within an institution that usually purrs along pretty smoothly because of the hard work and leadership many devote to the campus.

An organization the size of the UA needs an more intense system of budget management through which someone outside a department can spot deficit spending before it gets out of hand.

We appreciate Gearhart’s trust in his department leaders. It’s vital to a smooth-running operation.

A little external cross-checking can be a healthy thing, too.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 12/21/2012

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