During yesterday's BOT meeting Castell Bryant told board members that she had just been told, Wednesday, of additional unpaid employees. The university inability to pay adjunct professors, graduate/teaching assistants and student workers has cause some unpaid students to leave FAMU, and other students found their classes cancelled, said trustee and student body president Phillip Agnew.Additionally, some faculty's health benefits were not deducted properly from their pay, according to trustee and faculty member Mary Diallo.
When Bryant raised her point that this problem has been going on for years, and that having payroll procedures in place didn't guarantee procedures are followed, the Rev. R.B. Holmes Jr. said, “Let me just say this in a nice and gentlemanly way...I've never heard of those major payroll issues" in five years as a board member.
"By now, these issues should have been laid to rest," said trustee Al Cardenas.
In an attempt to get to the bottom of the problem, the board will hold a workshop within 30 to 45 days to try to try to determine what's going on and fix it.
The board generally avoids taking on university operational issues, leaving them for the President to resolve. But they said the late paychecks simply were unacceptable.
KPMG contract called into question
The role of accounting consultants KPMG, currently under a $1.9 million contract with FAMU, also was called into question.
continue reading: Trustees try to solve missed-pay issue
Castell tells legislators pay problems are age-old
Lowe blames past leaders
Castell continues to point fingers in payroll mess
Castell says it ain't her fault
Unpaid students face eviction
Castell clueless
Pay makes news
Pay issue has Castell pointing fingers
BUSTED! Pay-Gate continues and Cast-Hell says, "uhhhhhhh it ain't my fault. Did I do that?"
ReplyDeleteHolmes Wins By a Knockout!
ReplyDeleteLOL @ 7:38AM
ReplyDeleteIf this problem happen TWENTY years ago we are talking about know doing CASTELL'S leadership, so let's just take it on as a problem doing your time and fix it.
ReplyDeleteanonymous at 9:09 am has given us today's lesson in Ebonics...WTF???
ReplyDelete9:09 AM did not give us a lesson in "Ebonics", he or she simply made a TYPO. Grow up.... 9:23 AM
ReplyDeleteDidn't one of the faculty members mention that he was still waiting on his check from the summer of 98? That was well before Castell. We may not be completely satisfied with her services, but lets not blame her for inherited issues.
ReplyDelete...actually several typos..... ;-)
ReplyDeleteWe dont want the world thinking that FAMU grads cant write....Sepll coriectly or shut up!!! LOL
ReplyDeleteThe point is that FAMU has never failed to pay 755+ employees during one semester. That is unprecedented in our university's history.
ReplyDeleteThat simple fact proves that the problem is getting WORSE, not better, under Bryant's administration.
Didn't one of the faculty members mention that he was still waiting on his check from the summer of 98?
ReplyDeleteJust cause he said it doesn't make it true!
What fool would still be waiting on money owed from nine years ago?
I'm a faculty member whose family's health insurance has just been suspended because, according to People First, FAMU owes more than $350 of their share of the premiums! What is going on around here?
ReplyDeleteFirst, I got a letter saying I had to bring in a check, because FAMU forgot to double-deduct in the normal way (to account for summer months). I did that. Now my policy has been suspended because FAMU isn't paying.
I've put in calls to the human resources office, and, whenever anyone answers, the phones keep ringing in the background. Are lots of people having this problem?
This kind of problem should not be happening.
TYPO is not the issue here, but i know you got the message because you seem to be upset about the comment. Get Over It. FIX THE PROBLEM CASTELL
ReplyDeleteMoney that is being diverted can not go to paying premiums, bills (all over Tallahassee), and any other operating expenses.
ReplyDeleteTo 9:54...
ReplyDelete9:09 actually has more than "typos." While we can certainly understand the quickness of fingers going across a keyboard and the possibility of a person making an error or two along the way, 9:09's use of "doing" as opposed to "during" doesn't really appear to be a typo, nor does it appear to be a case of "Ebonics." What it does appear to be is a simple case of not understanding appropriate word usage. While this may seem like a minor case of faulty language and/or word skills I think that it's important to be able to critique soneone's else's grammatical and syntatical structure only if you are aware of the proper and correct usage yourself and can "offer it up" for argument.
I stand to correct my previous lesson in mechanics: In between the words "skills" and "I" should be a comma. My bad.
ReplyDeleteAlso, "soneone" should be "someone," but I sure we all know that that "no word" is a typo. My bad, again.
ReplyDelete"I'm"--typo, again. My triple bad.
ReplyDelete3/09/2007 2:02 PM
ReplyDeleteBack to the subject. The same thing happened with my insurance.
Enough wit' the grammar nazis already.
ReplyDeleteThis is a blog, NOT one of Dr. Gale's old education courses. Geez.
5:36--What's wrong with a little grammar lesson every now & again. BTW, Dr. Gayle was known for teaching secondary course in education. That's a wit bit difference in lessons in grammar. Geez...
ReplyDelete5:36--What's wrong with a little grammar lesson every now & again. BTW, Dr. Gayle was known for teaching secondary course in education. That's a wit bit difference in lessons in grammar. Geez...
ReplyDeleteThe issue is not typos or grammar, though it would be nice if no one made tupographical errors and no one should ever use bad grammar.
ReplyDeleteThe issue is competence.
FAMU is a university with an historical mission to serve black people of the state of Florida. It is still the major producer of college educated black people in Florida. And in the coming post-affirmative action period of history, this role will be as important as ever.
Yet, the university administration has shown extreme incompetence in the administration of the university. The payroll problem is just the tip of a metaphorical iceberg, and like a real iceberg, this payroll problem was not created overnight. If it is true that there have been payroll problems as far back as the 80's, and it seems to be, then shame on the past administrations as well as that of Interim President Bryant.
And shame on those of us including the FAMU board who have watched the inefficiency (a $51 million deficit?), the indifference (failure to name a dean of the law school for two years in the face of a threat to not accredit the school by the ABA), the confusion (exactly how many deans has the university searched for across the last year and a half? and in the face of the loss of two of her top financial officials the interim president says the doesn't know where she is going to find replacements . . . it makes you go hmmmmm), and the blindness that accounts for this and other problems, for we have allowed a false sense of racial solidarity to disable us from demanding the best that FAMU can be.
And shame on all of the aspects of state government that have supervisory power over for allowing this mess over time. The state would never have allowed such incredibly bad performance from the University of Florida, Florida State, UCF, or even Florida International. That it have allowed such performance to occur and to continue is a simply a sign of racism. They have allowed us to do whatever we want on our own plantation because it keeps us quiet, and when we do it poorly they accept it because in the end they think we cannot do better.
We should demand better accountability from the new president, the board, and all those who fund and supervise higher education, and we should demand better from ourselves than to accept what we have accepted for so long. Hopefully, we can put the outrage over payroll issues into constructive movement on the central role of the university - education.
That so-called $51 million deficit was nothing but a figment of Castell's imagination. Castell never provided one shred of evidence to the state auditor general's office to prove that claim. The FY 2004-2005 audit made that clear.
ReplyDeleteThe simple fact of the matter is that Castell is the one who created FAMU's current deficit by destroying FAMU's number one revenue-generating unit: the recruitment program.
When people start investigating these outside consulting contracts they'll start seeing where the $$$ went. This administration will pay 'da white man'four and five times what the job is worth and bleed the university to do it. KPMG, People Soft, Technology, you don't have to dig too far.
ReplyDelete"That so-called $51 million deficit was nothing but a figment of Castell's imagination. Castell never provided one shred of evidence to the state auditor general's office to prove that claim."
ReplyDeleteWell there is plenty of evidence that some kind of deficit existed.
I just don't think she could run up some big deficit numbers from scratch.
She has only been here a short while and all the time has been whole hog slashing and burning all the way. Yet,the "unofficial" word is that deficit it is currently $27 million.
She may have cut a $51 million deficit down to $27 million or raised a $22 million deficit to $27 million or whatever.
Our finances are leading the joke of the month club newsletter. Remember this one-- Hump left a $7 million surplus ---- Please!
How About this one--- Gainous found $10 million dollars in Lee Hall in a brown bag. The best one ---- The Crooks threw "Castelle and em" off their trails with over 200 "Ghost" checks.
The bottom line is that we have the highest priced accounting help money can buy but they are just as clueless as Dr. Bryant and team. The BOT ain't no better-- clueless!
ERP ---Useless!
Heaven help Dr. James Ammons, Next year around this time for the eggs will be being thrown at him too.
Dr. Humphries had it all figured out. Keep your books three years in arears. Thats how long it would took anybody to figure them out. But by them he would have borrowed money from Peter to pay Paul.
Well there is plenty of evidence that some kind of deficit existed.
ReplyDeleteJust check out the State Auditor General's report for 2004-2005. There is no evidence whatsoever that Fred Gainous left a deficit.
Originally Castell claimed there was a $51M deficit. She could not substantiate that number to the auditors, so she backed off of it and claimed that there was just a $3M deficit. Still the auditors could find no evidence to verify that claim either.
I just don't think she could run up some big deficit numbers from scratch.
Castell is directly responsible for today's deficit because she destroyed FAMU's top revenue-generating unit: the recruitment program. When enrollment took a dive, so did FAMU's financial health.
Castell inflicted this deficit as a result of her gross incompetence. She has no idea how to generate revenue at the university-level.
I'm a ANOTHER faculty member whose family's health insurance has just been suspended because, according to People First, FAMU owes more than $350 of their share of the premiums!
ReplyDeleteHuman resources has an "I don't give a crap about your petty problem" attitude that, frankly, is nearly enough cause to resign from my post.
HR messed up my taxes TOO. They took out WAY too much tax (suddenly changing my deducts) THEN they do not fix it when I get my W4 to them a week and a half before payday.
Two full days of my time were wasted trying to reinstate my insurance and fix my tax deductions.
This is inexcusable incompetence.
If people are over worked, we need to staff up, but I suspect that problem is qualitative rather than quantitative.
If anyone knows of a faculty position at a university that pays on time and gets the deductions right... please advise.
3/10/2007 7:34 AM said "When people start investigating these outside consulting contracts they'll start seeing where the $$$ went. This administration will pay 'da white man'four and five times what the job is worth and bleed the university to do it. KPMG, People Soft, Technology, you don't have to dig too far."
ReplyDeleteCONSULTANT RESPONSE: If you can find a competent black man that will work for 1/4 or 1/5 the amount of money then God bless you. Call me back in a year when your "internal team" has "fixed the problem." My fee will triple due to the mess that I will have to undo. You can pay me now or pay me later. You have my number.