When interim president Castell Bryant took office in December 2004 she reigned in all University cell phones, remember, thats how she closed the fiscal year with a $8 million surplus after just six months on the job. Well, apparently she reissued university cell phones to 62 of her "bestest friends" on the FAMU payroll. Together they racked up some $47,762 in cell phone bills. Kick in another $5,527 in charges for pager use.
State auditors selected 16 cell phone charges, totaling $18,583, for review. Auditors requested but not provided phone bill supporting any of the charges until after auditors released its prelimary audit in March.
Who were yall calling between midnight and 7 am?
A review of the bills found that only three of the 16 cell phone records tested complied with the university's guidelines. Auditors also found a number of instances where the phones wereused between midnight and 7 am and no determination was made wether the calls were business or personal.
Auditors recommended that University should confer with the Florida Department of Financial Services and reporte to the IRS the value of cell phone services provided each assigned employee.
*snicker*
ReplyDeleteGet them checkbooks out, cuz either y'all' be paying the school/state back, or the IRS for additional unclaimed income.
These JOKERS should have left Dean Luney alone. They should have been dislodging the TIMBER from their eyes before they went poking at the splinter in someone else's eyes. Their actions have damaged our law school. Someone should make them pay.
ReplyDeleteThat is so ridiculous!!! What person in their right mind would make calls on a business cell phone between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m. and not think that the calls they made would not be reviewed. We all know that those weren't business calls made between those hours. LOL!!! I agree that all parties involved need to be accountable for the actions.
ReplyDeleteSome of the callers were probably trying to get a midnight hook-up during the wee hours before going to work.
ReplyDeleteBusiness phone calls between Midnight and 7 AM? I would like to think that these folks were calling people on the West Coast and London asking for donations to the school, but we all know that cannot be the case.
ReplyDeleteAnd who in the hell is using a PAGER in the year 2007 that is not a medical doctor? What are going to do, find a PAY phone and put in 35 cents, rather than just using your cell phone.
Maybe these old foggies just discovered text messaging, and have not gone crazy with it not knowing those joints are 10 cents a pop.
And whatever happened to free nights and weekends? And whatever happened to free anytime calls b/t people on the same network or coverage? These types of plans have been in existence for at least 10 years. Damn Caz.
I'll tell you who they're calling - SATAN! He doesn't have the free nights and weekend deal. I've got to laugh or I'll cry over what has been done to our school!
ReplyDeleteI know who they were calling. This was Rufus Little and Altha Manning campaigning for Carolyn Jones. I received several IMs from lil Rufus.
ReplyDeleteSee crap comes back to haunt ya and she still lost with all of the University's resources.
Damn shame!SMH
Okay this is another one of those bullshit findings. We are not the only ones wrestling with this cell phone situation. It spung up on people before even the state could get some solid policies in place. The fact of the matter is most mid-managers and administrators are constantly on the job and almost always mobile. Few administrators can be found at their desk so thus the need for cell phones.
ReplyDeleteYes and when you work until 10 PM and get started at 7:00 AM. I can understand calls between 12 and 7. And frankly, out of all the calls considered how many fell in to this category. If one looked at 10,000 calls and 100 were questionable that's just 1% of the calls. But 100 sounds like alot but it just may not be that big of a deal.
Think critically here and don't let these auditors insult us. We have a right to be as ass-backwards as everyone else, including the Bush Administration, FSU, GM, Disney, Boeing, UF and O'Leans.
These fools have a history of making FAMU seem like some stupid poorly run institution. We have very significatn problems but if problems didn't exist in other institutions, we would not have a such thing as an auditor. Auditors job is to find something questionable. They check for dotted I's and crossed T's.
We deserved to be evaluated in context.
AMEN! 6:26 am
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ReplyDeleteGood point, but what about over spending our budget by $39 million? We had that right too?
This not so much about the amount or the time of the phone calls, it is about accountability. This FAMU administration claimed to demand accountability from professors and other staff. We cannot measure ourselves by other schools? Sure, this can happen at Princeton or Yale or Howard, but have money in the bank. We cannot afford to spend like every other institution until we can get our budget straight.
ReplyDelete6:26 says the calls are not a big deal. I agree, in a normal context they are NOT a big deal. However the Imposter President made a big, humongous deal about balancing FAMU's budget by monitoring cell phone usage. No, the cell phone usage would not have been a big deal, had the imposter not made it such.
ReplyDeleteNight call are free anyway so what is the problem? Cell phone service is so cheap now that many institutions and business allow employees to use their business phone as a personal phone also. My employer included. I dont really see a problem with it but this is 2007...why does anyone need a pager?
ReplyDeleteOnce again, there is no glitch, or equipment problem, or computer problm or software problem that has caused the mismanagement at FAMU...THERE IS A PEOPLE PROBLEM! We as alumni must demand that they GO!
ReplyDeleteWhat's a pager? A person who turns the pages in a book for someone who is physically unable to do so? A legislative intern who runs errands for the senators and representatives during the legislative session? An unscrupulous person who seeks the services of another person of questionable ethics and morals? A person who uses a standard phone to transmit an electronic message to another person whose electronic device receives the transmittal, alerting him/her that a message should be retrieved? All of these definitions fit a "pager." Can I get some clarification on what, exactly, "pager" means in the context of Bryant's administration?
ReplyDeleteLet's be for real, pagers are not used anymore!! Those are cell phone calls that were made in the early morning!! Somebody was creeping. We all know who!! A shame. CVB and the ms. thangs must go!!
ReplyDeleteThis is a ridiculous finding. Professionals use their business phones at all hours of the night. People arrive into airports for business after midnight and their ride is not available, call somebody. Need directions to a hotel, use cell phone. Football weekends---looking for people in the hospitality suite, coordination of late night meetings. Need to make a personal call, use the cell phone to tell family member you have arrived safely.
ReplyDeleteAs a person who travels for business (70% of the time)and work for a major corporation---I refuse to travel with two cell phones (personal and business) and two computers (personal and business). Most agencies expect nominal usage for personal reasons and accept it as the cost of doing business when a person is away from their home base. The comments by the auditors in this regard are ludicrous.
Its unfortunate that FAMUans so hate the current administration that they do not know when to support for GP and when someone has truly done something wrong.l Just like someone pointed out, 1% usage is not an easy, and even 10% and greater usage is acceptable.
Let's stop letting people attack us becasue they feel they can. We have created an environment that permits people to attack people on all fronts. People on thid board contribute to this air that FAMU should be attacked. We need to learn what is and is not a reasonable issue.
Plenty calls were probably made for business purposes--and for all of the reasons you've stated--but I also think that plenty more calls were made for creeping purposes. It's pretty much difficult to pin-point such a thing as who called whom for what purposes. I also think that folks with the cell phones simply abused the privilege of having one, simply because they were not paying the bill. And we all know this is true. Their rationale is, "They,"meaning "the University--"got plenty $$." So then, the illogical becomes their logic. Go figure.
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