Bulldogs of the Nineties!!!!

Thursday, December 11, 2008
By BUDD MCLAUGHLIN
Times Staff Writer budd.mclaughlin@htimes.com
Interim presidentsays no degreesare in jeopardy

Alabama A&M University has been placed on probation over unspecified financial issues, according to the Commission of Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

"The commission voted Tuesday to put Alabama A&M on probation for 12 months," Dr. Belle Wheelan, president of the Commission of Colleges, said Wednesday. The action came during the accrediting organization's annual meeting in San Antonio.

She said the school failed to comply with the organization's Principles of Accreditation on financial stability, financial resources, financial aid audits and control of finances.

"We have not received the formal letter from SACS outlining the particulars upon which they made their decision," Alabama A&M Interim President Beverly Edmond said Wednesday. "The thing we want to emphasize is, the institution remains accredited.

"While this is not good news ... none of the degrees we award are in jeopardy."

Edmond said the school is already working on a plan to address the areas of concern.

"We are very confident that these issues will be quickly resolved," she said. A&M "remains an outstanding place to receive an education, and none of the concerns deal with the quality of our academic programs."

Edmond said she anticipated A&M would be able to quickly come off probation, as Auburn did. SACS placed Auburn on probation in December 2003 on issues concerning governance and its board of trustees, and lifted the sanction 12 months later.

A&M has also been involved in controversy surrounding its board of trustees. However, Wheelan said, "the board situation was not a part of this review."

Financial controversies are not new for A&M.

In April, the board formed a committee to follow up on a report by the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts the showed some former officials and employees owed more than $1.176 million in inappropriate charges and money not properly deposited. The audit covered Oct. 1, 2002, through Sept. 30, 2005.

Among the findings were:

"Daily Cash Counts" were not always compared and reconciled with what was taken at the cash terminal, and deposits were not made timely or "intact," meaning items in the deposit were not always the same amounts of cash or checks collected at the terminal on that date.

The university did not have an accurate list of outstanding checks to support the bank reconciliations of the main operating account, and reconciliations were not performed on a timely basis. Differences between the amounts reflected on the outstanding check file and the amounts reflected as outstanding checks in the university's bank reconcilement ranged from thousands to millions of dollars.

Procedures were not in place to ensure documentation of revenue collected for athletic events was retained and that money was properly accounted for and deposited.

According to SACS, probation is the more serious of two sanctions, the other being a warning. Probation is usually, but not necessarily, invoked as the last step before an institution is removed from membership. Probation may be imposed upon initial institutional review, depending on the judgment of the commission of the seriousness of noncompliance or in the case of repeated violations recognized by the commission over time.

When a school fails to correct deficiencies or make satisfactory progress toward compliance with the Principles of Accreditation, it may be placed on probation. The maximum consecutive time an institution may be on probation is two years.

The Commission on Colleges of SACS is the regional body for the accreditation of higher education institutions in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Latin America that award associate, baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degrees.