No UA wrongdoing

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

In what may seem to many like the ever-repetitious saga of that unfortunate budgeting mistake made in the Advancement Division at the University of Arkansas, Washington County Prosecutor David G. Bercaw determined after months of review that Don Pederson, the university’s vice chancellor for finance and administration, didn’t make false statements or provide phony documents to the Legislative Audit Committee.

In other words, he did nothing wrong in the way he dealt with the budgeting mistakes.

Why am I not the least surprised since, following two audits of these errors (requested by Chancellor David Gearhart) along with an earlier months-long prosecutorial investigation, this same prosecutor found no criminal wrongdoing in the division’s $4.2 million budget shortfall?

Fourteen legislators requested the investigation into Pederson’s actions because he had signed a letter connected to the audit in which Pederson stated he had no knowledge of allegations of fraud involving management or other key employees. The legislators seemed troubled by a letter from UA Treasurer Jean Schook to Pederson that included her opinion of a potential risk for fraud problems in the advancement division’s budgeting.

Pederson and Schook understood there had been a breakdown in controls but did not know of any actual allegations of fraud or wrongdoing, Bercaw told the legislators. Bercaw’s letter also notes no fraud was found anywhere in the division’s shortfall.

In other words, neither Pederson nor Schook did anything wrong, though Schook expressed her concerns over a risk that fraud could occur.

Even with my pea brain, I know the difference between saying the bank has been robbed and that there’s a risk the bank could be robbed. The budget problem with the division under former head Brad Choate’s “supervision” happened as Gearhart and others have explained for nearly two years now. Choate wrongly hired more employees than his budget allowed for a coming fundraising campaign. As a result of mismanagement, skyrocketing expenses grew well out of hand.

Pederson was admirably measured in his response to the prosecutor’s vindication: “I appreciate the careful attention to this matter made by the prosecuting attorney’s office and agree completely with the findings of this review. The report speaks for itself.”

Indeed it does, as have all the other investigations into this accounting shortfall that has since been resolved largely through ample reserves.

Still, it wouldn’t surprise me, considering the obvious political posturing involved in this rather tedious budgeting blunder, to walk into a Barnes and Noble one day and see an encyclopedic, 27-book series on the University of Arkansas Advancement Division’s unfortunate and unscandalous budgeting mistakes of 2012 that turned out to be just that.

On second thought, believe I’ll just wait for the movie and a tub of popcorn.

Compassion for whom?

Surely you also have heard about the Oklahoma inmate whose botched execution by injection left him in agony until finally succumbing to a heart attack. The 38-year-old convicted murderer, Clayton Lockett, suffered as he died. His attorney called it “a horrible thing to witness.”

While I have compassion and empathy for those who suffer, I also can’t help wondering how Lockett’s innocent victim, 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman, felt in her final minutes after Lockett blasted her with a shotgun as he and his accomplices were robbing a home. How did she react after Lockett’s cohorts buried the teenager while she was still alive?

If compassion can be given in doses, I’d have to say mine weighed far more heavily on the side of this young woman as she gasped in agony, realizing her life was coming to an end because of Lockett and his buddies. I can’t imagine a worse way to die. And what about those who loved Stephanie?

It’s been said “what goes around comes around” often proves true in this lifetime. Some might call that karmic balancing.

My objection to the death penalty always has been solely the fact that numerous wrongly convicted people have been executed in our country over the years, their innocence proven only after it was too late.

In Lockett’s painful demise as a proven murderer, it strikes me he might have become a karmic victim of his own earlier terrible actions.

Suspect skulking skunks

Holy moley! Something downright hydrophobic is up across our state when it comes to rabid animals. It sure seems that way when you see that the number of cases increased from 34 reported in 2010 to 60 in 2011 and a whopping 152 in 2013.

In fact, a news account said the number of rabid animals (mostly skunks) has steadily increased during the past five years. The Arkansas specifics for 2013 broke down like this: 118 rabid skunks, 26 bats, three cats, three dogs, one horse and a cow from Madison County (really). I suspect they’ll call the rabid-bovine movie Moojo.

Benton County hadn’t reported a case in several years. Yet by the fifth month this year, three rabid skunks had been found countywide among the 75 confirmed Arkansas cases. Sixty-two of the the confirmed cases were skunks.

The moral: Be super suspicious of staggering skunks skulking strangely. -

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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Editorial, Pages 15 on 05/06/2014