Legislative auditors have completed much of the field work on a review of deficit finances at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s Division of Advancement and estimate the audit to be released later this summer, an official said Friday.
On Feb. 5, Chancellor G. David Gearhart asked that Arkansas’ Division of Legislative Audit perform the review with the help of University of Arkansas System internal auditors. The Advancement Division had accumulated a multimillion-dollar budget deficit over a period of years.
Roger A. Norman, legislative auditor with the Audit Division, said he estimates the agency willrelease the audit early, before a meeting it has planned for September.
Norman wrote in an e-mail Friday that field work was almost complete, after which the report will be compiled and reviewed.
“I suspect the earliest [the] report will be ready will be late July or sometime in August,” he said.
Last fall, an internal financial review by UA-Fayetteville’s treasurer found that two Advancement Division employees - Vice Chancellor Brad Choate and his budget director, Joy Sharp - didn’t monitor income andspending adequately. Treasurer Jean Schook also determined they didn’t follow university policies in handling the budget.
The mishandling resulted in the division overspending its roughly $10 million budget by more than $3 million in the previous fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2012.
Both Choate, the division’s top employee and the university’s chief fundraiser, and Sharp were told late last year they would not be reappointed but Gearhart said publicly he would allow them to finish out their appointments through today.
Choate was allowed to keep his $348,175 salary and his title, but he was stripped of his administrative duties, including budget oversight, in early November.
On April 1, UA brought in Choate’s successor, ChrisWyrick, and said Choate would help Wyrick transition into his new job.
Sharp initially was relieved of budget duties and reassigned to other work within the Advancement Division. Her salary was cut from $91,086 to $68,314, and she was transferred from the Advancement Division to a job in the university’s Human Resources Office. Her final job was as a human-resources specialist; late last year, UA officials said that involved nonbudgetary tasks such as coordinating the Razor-Temp program, which helps campus offices find temporary labor.
On Friday, the last official workday of the 2012-13 fiscal year, records showed Choate and Sharp were still employed by the university, with no indication Choate plannedto leave before the last day of the fiscal year today, said Barbara Abercrombie, associate vice chancellor for the Human Resources Office.
Choate still was on the payroll as vice chancellor for the Advancement Division, making $204,886 in publicly funded salary and $143,289 in salary from private funds, for a total of $348,175, Abercrombie said. His benefits package also had not changed.
UA officials earlier hadsaid the salary portion of Choate’s compensation was funded with $273,181 in public money and a $74,994 private supplement, for the same total. It wasn’t clear Friday why the breakdown was different.
Sharp was still listed as a human-resources specialist, Abercrombie said. Her salary remained at $68,314 Friday, all of it publicly paid.
A Nov. 16, 2012, memorandum from Gearhart to Sharp had earlier clouded the issue of whether her employment would end today, as he had publicly said. In it, he wrote to her that if sheperformed satisfactorily in her new job, she might be able to continue in the Human Resources Office after today, with a new, commensurate salary.
But in late May, UA spokesman John Diamond said that there were no plans to continue Sharp’s employment after the new fiscal year begins Monday and that Sharp had been informed of this.
On Friday, Abercrombie said Sharp had given notice June 1 that she would resign, effective today. The university will recognize it as a resignation, she added.
Sharp’s sister, Betty Sharp, had also become a figure in the deficit news after the university’s inquiry found she had helped Joy Sharp process some transactions for the Advancement Division.
University leaders never made public any plans to terminate or discipline Betty Sharp.
As of Friday, Betty Sharp was still on the university payroll as a development-advancement specialist in the Advancement Division’s Development Office, earning a $63,940 salary, Abercrombie said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 06/30/2013