The Board of Governors Task Force created to overview FAMU finances, after the university received a scathing review from the state auditors under former interim president Castell Bryant's, criticized its consults yesterday for its failure to clearly document its progress.
The Task Force's consultants presented the group a mammoth 230-page report that was thick with jargon that didn't fully outline improvements.
Since the Task Force's creation, Bryant resigned and new FAMU President James Ammons and his team has been able to get the university's first clean audit in three years.
The Task Force is due to present its findings to the Legislature on March 1, the legislative session starts on March 4. Lawmakers granted the task force $1 million to verify corrections at FAMU.
"It's extremely ponderous type of reading that you've given us now," task force member and retired Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw said. "I suspect it will not be well received by the Legislature. It looks like cut and paste at this point."
The timestamp on the corrected pages of the report given to task force members showed 7:25 a.m. Friday, just two hours before Friday's meeting was to start.
By the end of Friday's meeting, task force members and the consultants concluded that they would create a 10-page report which clearly specifies problem areas and improvements.
The task force plans to meet again Wednesday where they hope to finalize an initial report to present to legislators. Members have until June 30 to present a final report.
The report was written by Accretive Solutions, a Jacksonville consulting firm. The firm was hired nearly three months ago to verify whether FAMU administrators have taken proper steps to fix at least 62 financial and operational problems. Out of those 62 problem areas, 12 were rated below satisfactory. However, Tom King, of Accretive Solutions explained that the report was not final. The auditing firm has not completed work in some areas that task force members are most interested in, such as the oversight of contracts and grants.
Also see: FAMU finances in order
Lawson calls for BOG to disband task force
Auditors note 35 areas of improvement
What a waste of money. The state auditors have already checked FAMU's finances and charted what the university administration has done to correct the problems.
ReplyDeleteSen. Lawson and Sen. Ring are correct. The BOG Task Force is a waste of money.
Stop funding this waste of taxpayer dollars!
I am certain President Ammons is trying to correct FAMU Administrative problems. Some improvements have been made, but much remains to be done. When the Board of Trustees (BOT) was created by Gov Bush, no administrative support was given to handle FAMU's interaction with its BOT. Now, two weeks before each BOT meeting, the entire FAMU Administration stops providing services to students and faculty, and prepares for the BOT meeting. On top of that worthless activity, they now have to prepare for this BOG task force. This is a ridiculous farce. How is preparing reports going to "help" FAMU with its problems. This hinders progress much more than it helps. Help would have been provided by giving FAMU the $1 million rather than paying this consulting firm to produce a worthless stack of paper--more absurd State of Florida nonsense.
ReplyDeleteMy my my....time tells all tells...BOG? Give me a break! A bunch of Jeb political hacks doing a good ol' fashion number six on FAMU...This was a joke from this was a bunch of crap from the start. They are doing what the BOT is suppose to do and they got a million bucks to do it? Where is the outcry from the Democrat on this? Where is the rage from those idiots at the St. Pete Times and Orlando Sentinel? I'll tell you nowhere, and why? Because white gonna look out fa white and thats that jack!
ReplyDelete10:13 Please. Let's move beyond that rhetoric.
ReplyDelete11:37 how bout you move back to reality. History does not lie it simply repeats itself when we forget it ever happened to begin with. NOw take that rhetoric and Learn something.
ReplyDelete