The FAMU BOT is meeting today in the dean's conference room, new Journalism building to discuss the following:
A. Hiring Flow (faculty, staff, adjuncts, and OPS)
B. Report on Payroll problems
C. Report on Operational Audits
D. US Department of Labor Report
E. KPMG Contracts
F. Status Report on BOG Task Force
The meeting is being chaired by Vice Chair Bill Jennings.
Any idea what happened? Did they decide to blame Bryant for all of the problems? If only they would do that averyone at FAMU could hold hrnads and our problems would go away. Willie Meggs don't care much for black folk, but maybe we can get him to arrest her and throw her in jail!!!!
ReplyDeleteBe productive. It hurts us all to say what should be said about the job Castell Bryant has done. If that is your "homegirl", you should be looking to leave with her. Respectfully.
ReplyDeleteOn the payroll problems, I commend Bryant fror making some progress rather than waiting until July.
ReplyDeleteArticle published Apr 21, 2007
Bryant delivers more bad financial news to FAMU trustees
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Capital Bureau Political Editor
Florida A&M University President Castell Bryant told FAMU trustees today the financially troubled university has two more big payroll problems.
Bryant - who plowed through over 600 payment demands for graduate assistants, adjunct instructors and some professors last February and March -said she found out Friday night about 159 new late-paycheck requests. The trustees approved a letter advising employees how they can resolve such problems.
On another item in a four-hour board meeting, Bryant and FAMU general counsel Elizabeth McBride said they soon hope to answer U.S. Department of Labor questions about employee overtime and leave backlogs. Bryant said some employees claimed 2,000 hours in compensatory time, and she questioned how anyone could pile up so much in the two-year period covered by the federal inquiry.
"You know what it is?" she said wearily after the meeting. "It's just another example of the kind of environment we're working in. That's all it is."
Trustees vice-chairman Bill Jennings said the university needs accounting help and modernized computer systems. He said the administration will "take reasonable steps to address those people who are coming forward" with back-pay or "comp time" demands.
The board adopted a form letter telling current employees to get their payment requests in promptly.
"This effort is to officially and finally bring closure to all outstanding payment claims at the university," says the letter. "This is our good-faith effort to assure delayed accountability and responsibility."
Bryant spent all day Friday with a Board of Governors task force created to examine FAMU finances after a blistering state audit last month. When she got back to her office in the evening, she said, there was an answer to her clean-up request for payroll backlogs.
"The week before last, we sent out a call to the campus saying, 'If you have any person that has not been paid, please bring it in now.' This is the same call we made at the beginning of the term, but my involvement tells me we needed to say it one more time," said Bryant. "They told me that through Thursday and yesterday, they received 159 requests."
Some employees had more than one claim, for different periods or assignments.
Bryant, who yields the FAMU presidency to former Provost James Ammons on July 2, has appeared before the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee to answer questions about Auditor General Bill Monroe's 35 critical operational findings, personnel and technology woes on campus and chronic late payment of staff.
She told the board the federal Department of Labor asked about overtime and accumulated leave time for "OPS" employees - temporary and part-time workers - and those in the University Support Personnel Service class, including laborers. She said "every time sheet for every employee" had to be individually checked and that FAMU expects to get information from the state on Monday about overtime that was paid.
McBride said there were between 2,500 to 3,000 employees in the affected job classes. It is not known how many have filed comp-time claims but McBride said FAMU hopes to submit answers to the federal government by Tuesday.
Bryant said FAMU is financially liable for legitimate time claims. She said she asked the staff for totals of accumulated leave and "there was one in there for 2,000 hours. That's a lot of dollars.
"So I asked some questions ... and the people who were making the report said, 'Oh, no, we've got others in there like that.' So I said, 'OK, I'm not going to send that to DOL, saying I owe this person that. What you guys need to start doing is, you need to be prepared to go back to some point in time. I need to find out how someone was able to accumulate 2,000 hours.'
"I doubt seriously it was ever in a two-year period," she said.
Even her critics concede that poor management and lack of accountability were part of FAMU life long before Bryant's arrival as interim president 28 months ago.
"For over 10 years, the same issues have been brought to the university's attention," said Ali, referring to some audit findings. "What we've been doing is treating the symptoms and not the illnesses of the university."
Bryant said she has tried to fix bad events, but also to instill in management a desire to find out why they keep happening.
"I just want to be remembered as having brought transparency to FAMU," she said. "All of the many times that this has come forward, I have not been able to find any data or anything that shows that anybody had done anything."
Castell and Lizzie as well as Ali are lying in these their last hours. Since CVB said that she had fired all the incompetent people over the last two years, why is she still dealing with the same issues 28 months later. We (Critics) want CVB to tell the truth before she departs in June. Ali and Bailey have been her running stars. They were the competent ones that were getting things corrected at FAMU. How many more lies does she want us to believe?
ReplyDeleteWhere exactly are the lies here? Are you certifiably insane? Basically, to you anything Bryant says is a lie. Yet yoyu are so full of shit that brown is oozing from your mouth. Go Bryant!!!! Fire incompetent faculty and staff, such as those who run this blog!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWhom ever posted the last coment must be one of her stooges who are on the day ou the door!!!
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody know if Dr. Ammons can pay-out the whole CVB croonies and put his team in place early. Seems like the CVB bunch has at least 60 days to continue to sabotage the university and to keep us in the news. When is enough enough.
ReplyDeleteI heard Rufus little is running scared. Yeah that was him yawning, cause he ain't use to being up that early. I say get him out quick and fire is butt just like the bank did.
ReplyDelete