FAMUans should ask state auditors to look into $12.9M COE budget shift to FSU

Florida Auditor General Sherrill F. Norman and her staff are currently going over Florida A&M University documents to see whether President Elmira Mangum received Board of Trustees (BOT) approval for two purchase orders totaling $371,738 for capital projects at the President’s House before they were executed. The president’s contract says “Dr. Mangum shall obtain prior approval from the Board (or its designee) for any capital improvements or repairs to the home or its grounds which have a project cost over $10,000.”

FAMUans should contact Norman’s office and ask her to also look into the shift of the $12.9M FAMU-FSU College of Engineering (COE) budget from FAMU to FSU that happened last year without a vote of approval by the BOT.

BOT members requested former FAMU General Avery McKnight to examine the issue back in August, but he was fired months later and didn’t present a formal report about the budget shift before his exit. His termination came weeks after he told the BOT that Mangum’s contract had been violated. He said that four capital improvement projects above $10,000, including the construction of a garage, took place at the President’s House after the start date Mangum’s contract without being presented to the BOT for its approval.

The Florida Legislature designated FAMU to be in charge of the funds for the COE and put that money in the university’s general revenue line between 1987 and 2014. But in May, after the legislature created a new budget entity for the appropriation, a new Joint College of Engineering Governance Council decided that it was going to start calling the shots about what happens to the $12.9M COE budget instead of FAMU.

The council took that position even though it isn’t even mentioned in the General Appropriations Act that created the new budget entity. No part of the General Appropriations Act says that the Joint College of Engineering Governance Council has permission to take control of the $12.9M COE budget. The Senate originally placed the BOG language about the council in its version of the bill, but that language was not part of the final bill that Gov. Rick Scott signed into law because the House asked for those paragraphs to be removed.  

Rattlers should write the Office of the Florida Auditor General and ask it to help find answers about whether or not the FAMU BOT was supposed to have given its approval before the $12.9M COE budget was moved to FSU. The preliminary audit for the FAMU 2014-2015 fiscal year is expected to be released in February or March.

The contact page for the Office of the Florida Auditor General is here.

Final version of law signed by Gov. Rick Scott

Senate language on Joint College of Engineering Governance Council removed from final bill