IRONIC TWIST OF FATE Alabama State Universitys enrollment shortfalls will force the school to trim at least another $8 million from an operating budget, which was adopted yesterday. The new budget, which becomes effective on October 1, was already about $15 million less than the previous year’s budget. In an ironic twist of fate, the new Administration and Board of Trustees are looking to secure this $8 million from an $80 million endowment fund established years ago by recently retired ASU Executive VP John F. Knight, Jr. This is the same John Knight that Governor Bentley and President Gwen Boyd railed against all of this year with claims that he and others mismanaged the University. This is the same John Knight who always made sure that ASU had balanced budgets from known, real and stable sources of revenue. This is the same John Knight who made sure ASU had the longest consecutive string of unqualified financial audits of any university in Alabama. The Knight money was established to create scholarships for students, not to pay the operating costs of the University. Dr. Boyds knight in shining armor, Robert Bentley, the so-called clean up the university champion, has yet to bring a new dime in funding to ASU. Dr. Boyd has been on the job nine months and has only raised about $350,000 in contributions. Rather than increasing student enrollment and cutting expenses during the past nine months, ASU officials have been busy with ceremonial and celebratory activities. Now that the week-long presidential inaugural festivities are over, ASU officials are facing reality - the University must find a way to live within its financial means. In the past, ASU has never adopted a new budget that boasted an $8 million deficit on day-one. As noted above, every budget has always been balanced from known sources of proven revenues. This is how ASU obtained its A category rating on Wall Street, before Bentleys clean-up activities took it down to a B rating. If this is the cleaned up new style of fiscal management Bentley wanted for ASU, we are about to watch what was once a great university implode financially in record time. It is unthinkable that John Knight, who has been vilified by Bentley and the new Administration, will allow the endowment funds he created for student scholarships to be used by University officials to pay the bills necessary to keep the lights on and water running at ASU. Now is the time for Bentley and Dr. Boyds friends and cheerleaders to step up to the plate financially and show that they love ASU enough to cover this $8 million hole in the new budget.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 14:21:17 +0000
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