Ali warns it will be bad again this year!Part VI of the Tallahassee Democract's look at FAMU:
Within weeks after James Ammons officially takes over as president Monday, Florida A&M will receive yet another state audit, this one an annual review of its last fiscal year's finances.
State auditors say it's too early to say whether the findings will be as harsh as previous reports. However, several factors that officials say are at the root of FAMU's festering financial problems still exist, including a flawed computerized management system; a finance structure that provides weak department oversight; and high staff turnover and vacancies in key financial positions.
Vice President for Fiscal Affairs Grace Ali told members of the Board of Governors' task force this spring that FAMU is in pretty much the same position as last year, when state auditors said they couldn't be sure the financial statements they were auditing were correct - a first for a Florida university.
Continue reading: Systems must improve for audits to improve
In addition to proper training, FAMU staff needs clear procedures to follow.
ReplyDeleteToo many processes at FAMU are handled on a personal basis, rather than as procedures.
When you need something done, you file the paperwork, yes. But then you follow up by phoning the people up the chain who are responsible for seeing that the paperwork gets handled instead of lost.
Then you drop by a few days or weeks later and chat up the people who need to move your paperwork.
This doesn't happen with every process, but it happens far too often.
Just one example: Until recently, to get a PeopleSoft requisition approved by the next person up the approval chain, I had to submit it on PeopleSoft (which automatically notifies that person), then phone that person's secretary and ask her to ask that the requisition be approved.
All that should happen electronically by people just doing their jobs, not by people acting as gatekeepers dispensing favors to those who ask nicely.
The result is a system of management that most of the time can be navigated only by insiders who work with other insiders. Some of this is caused by the frustrating complexity of almost every process. Some, though, is caused by a third-world mentality, where you have to "go to the right person" to get something done.
8:16 You are telling the truth. Many of these people do not check their emails and furthermore they hate to pick up the phone to answer a simple question. They always find meetings to attend. They feel that their secretary is responsible for EVERYTHING... Including getting them coffee and running..doing their personnel duties...Hopefully Ammons will stop this.. They make TOO MUCH money to think they just should show up to work in the middle of the day and surf the web and take long lunch breaks starting at 3:00 and leave work at 5:00. I'm talking about Faculty.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what faculty members you're talking about, but none of the faculty members I know have secretaries unless the faculty member is a department chair. And then, the secretary isn't the chair's personal maid or personal secretary. She (or he) does not "belong" to a single person. They are employees of the university and are there to do a job, which benefits a particular department. None that I know of do any fetching of coffee and donuts except (perhaps) for themselves, and none that I know of are asked to do such things. Additionally, faculty members don't have to "take long lunch breaks." We're working, 24/7: reading, writing, researching, conferencing, publishing (and/or trying to find a venue for our research), preparing notes for lectures and engaging an academic life so that we can better serve the students and the university. While it may be easy to accuse a few persons of doing the things which you cite, the great majority of the university's faculty members do their job and do it very well. Every blue moon, we might (as I am presently doing) visit RN to see what the climate is. Believe me, however, when I say that we hardly have the time, interest and/or inclination to "surf the web," unless, of course, we are engaged in online research. We're thinking and doing and moving all the time in an academic frame of mind. Don't castigate the entire lot because of your experience(s) with a few professors who did not measure up. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll complete the search that I simply excused myself from for a few minutes.(I accept your apology for not quite understanding the life of an academic.)
ReplyDeleteFAMU needs to hire professional financial managers in each school and department of the university. These individuals should be made responsible for ensuring the finances are in order on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. They should also be required to do internal audits to ensure all procedures are being followed. And finally, the comptroller should be responsible for quarterly reports to the President and Board of Directors. FAMU is a business and it should be run like a business and not like some amateurish organization.
ReplyDeletePeople trained well to run bad processes is a recipe for disaster. This issue is much deeper than lack of training. It's what Ammons called systemic problems. Without addressing the Systemic issues, you'll just end up with more people doing it wrong and well trained at it.
ReplyDeleteImagine a city where most of the roads have dead ends, others are without marked lanes, even more with stop lights that only work sporadically, and street names that change every three blocks. No matter how well the people are trained to drive, you still end up with a mess and unfortunately a mess that people get use to and learn to accept as normal.
Taking this a step further, when trained designers try to fix the mess by marking lanes the people start complaining about the paint on their streets. They don't like the colors which should be red & white not pink & green or black & yellow. When one attempts to straighten out the street names (job titles) people start fighting about which name should be the official name and some will actually sue claiming that the boss moved ther house to a different street (go figure).
I can take this analogy even further but I have work to do. The bottom line; these problems can be fixed but properly training even smart people to run bad system leads only to more audit problems, it just leads to more people well trained to do it wrong.
Nevertheless properly trained staff is a good thing but we may need to do a little bit more.
11:52 That person should have said Faculty in Administrative positions (VP's, Directors and Asst. Directors I'm assuming. Let me break it down......Seniors secretaries, program assistants, administrative assistants, coordinators (especially), custodial workers are treated like stepchildren regardless of what you or anybody else says. Try doing what we do for one day. You would not last. Yes, I have a master's degree, but like I said they treat you like a stepchild. Greenleaf and Yarbrough changed the pay by the way. Because you do not have a Doctoral. We do all the work that many people cheated and paid their way to avoid.
ReplyDeleteBut as you said
(I accept your apology for not quite understanding the life of an academic.) The money FAMU pay for these people going to conferences, etc.--They should be hiring extra staff to help ease the workload of people that do not do their job and consistently in the office making up lies and excuses for their too many bosses in one department.
Now IF, you are not the person described in 7:08, you better pray you do not run across a shade tree Director or VP, because it's not fun at all.
As for faculty working 24/7, read some of the previous posts from all the other post a comment. Please be sure the read comments from students. Somebody is telling a lie. I've had a few that lied nonstop.
1:04 Keep up the good work.
Oh, certainly I understand how badly non-faculty are treated at the university. Believe me when I say that contrary to popular stereotype, faculty are not treated any better. If secretaries and staff support at the uiversity are treated like stepchildren, well, faculty members are treated like stepchildren of the stepchildren. I would say that 99.9% of us who attend conferences do so at our own expense. Either we do it that way or we simply do not attend. The great number of conferences that I've attended and presented, where I made scholarly presentations, were done ABSOLUTELY on my own $$. Don't let the myth of professors' bankers' hours fool you. It's no day at the beach for us either.
ReplyDeleteGrace Ali should be walkin out of Foote-Hilyer for good soon!
ReplyDelete