February 9, 2012

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University presidents make direct money pitch to legislators

February 9, 2012 By

Members of the Board of Regents and the presidents the state-supported universities made their pitch for state funding at the capitol Wednesday. Iowa State University President, Steven Leath, says they need money to deal with a combination of a growing student body and rising infrastructure costs.

“If we are going to continue to provide a quality education, we need funds just to keep up and give all the students, including these new students, the same quality education there predecessors had,” Leath said. Representative Ron Jorgenson, a Republican from Sioux City, said there’s a public relations issue about how the schools operate, and asked the presidents if they should bring in someone to do an outside evaluation.

“Do you think that would be a good idea to counter this perception that’s out there that you are too costly and too inefficient?, Jorgenson asked. University of Iowa President, Sally Mason, responded that she didn’t want to waste money to learn what she already knows. She says they have already had and outside review.

“It showed that we were a $6-billion asset to the state of Iowa, and yet people then turned to me and said ‘well I don’t believe that.’ So, tell me what would convince people of what we know we’re doing and were doing well,” Mason said. Mason says what they are doing well at is cutting costs– she says all three colleges have slashed administrative costs, while at the same time trying to maintain higher educational standards.

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Report suggests state support of higher education lagging

February 7, 2012 By

A coalition of liberal-leaning groups has issued its own analysis of Republican Governor Terry Branstad’s spending priorities for higher education. Andrew Cannon authored the report for the Iowa Fiscal Partnership, to call lawmakers’ attention to the level of funding for the state universities and community colleges.

“Our hope is we’ll look at what is needed,” Cannon says.

According to Cannon’s calculations, the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa are getting 3.5 percent less state support this year compared to last year. Cannon also suggests state support of the 15 area community colleges is still less than it was in 2008 or in 2009.

“Over that same period, community college enrollment has grown from 88,000 students to over 106,000 students,” Cannon says. “So the questions we need to be asking: Are we meeting the needs or are students going to be faced with larger debt burdens as they move on to their careers?”

Governor Branstad’s spokesman says Iowa’s higher education institutions “are a priority for the governor, which is why they were one of the few institutions to receive increased funding in the governor’s recommended budget.” The governor’s aide noted the “overwhelming majority” of state agencies are seeing no increase or a reduction in funding during this time of “scarce” state resources.

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Bid to deny pay hikes to college presidents dies

February 3, 2012 By

A proposal to deny pay raises to the presidents of Iowa, Iowa State and UNI if tuition rates for students go up has died in the Iowa House. Representative Jeremy Taylor, a high school teacher from Sioux City, was pushing the idea.

“There’s an age-old fallacy within education institutions that you either give us more money or students are going to suffer,” Taylor said. “Now I think there is a third-rail and a third option and that option is to look at administrative expense, and the cuts should come from the top.”

A three-member subcommittee rejected Taylor’s bill after more than 20 minutes of discussion on Thursday. Representative Mary Mascher is a Democrat from Iowa City, which is home to the University of Iowa. She told Taylor tuition hikes are really the fault of legislators who’ve failed to provide the state universities enough money.

“You seem to think there isn’t a correlation between what we allocate in the legislature and tuition increases and what I’m telling you there’s a direct relationship,” Mascher said.

Representative Josh Bynes, a Republican Osage, suggested the bill’s death doesn’t mean the “critique” of university administrators is over.

“I realize that this bill has got some heartburn all the way around,” Byrnes said. “I think that sometimes legislation can also be used as raising awareness and I think the awareness piece here on this piece of legislation is that there’s a serious concern about rising tuition costs.”

In December, the board that governs the state universities voted for a 3.75 percent increase in tuition rates for undergraduates who are residents of Iowa. That higher rate goes into effect for the fall semester. This past August the Board of Regents voted to hike the base salaries for the presidents of Iowa, Iowa State and UNI by four percent. UNI president Ben Allen and his wife have donated his salary hike to a university scholarship fund. Iowa State’s president retired in January and his replacement has taken over in Ames.

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Update: former UNI ticket office employee charged with theft

December 28, 2011 By

John Gogola

A former University of Northern Iowa ticket office employee has been charged with first-degree theft after an audit showed he took thousands of dollars.

Agents with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation arrested 44-year-old John Gogola of Cedar Falls this morning and he is being held in the Black Hawk County jail on a $50,000 bond.

Gogola was the assistant director of UNItix, which sells tickets for sports and entertainment events on campus. He left the job in August of 2010.

U.N.I. requested a state audit after a customer reported they had not gotten the tickets they bought through UNI-tix. The State Auditor says Gogola used numerous transactions to cover his tracks and issued refunds to his own personal credit card for almost $17,000.

Story on the state audit.

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Audit finds improper transactions by former UNI ticket office employee

December 28, 2011 By

A special investigation by State Auditor Dave Vaudt found several thousand dollars in improper transactions by the former assistant director of the University of Northern Iowa’s UNItix ticket office. University officials contacted the auditor after someone called and said they had not received the athletic tickets they purchased.

Vaudt says the audit by his office found that John Gogola was taking money that was meant for things like theater and football tickets.

“He did it primarily by issuing refunds to his own personal credit card, almost $17,000 was issued to his personal credit card to take money from other accounts,” Vaudt explained.

Gogola left the Cedar Falls school in August of 2010 before the problem was discovered. Vaudt says there could be more improper transactions, but it was hard to sort through all the information.

“He went through a very complicated scheme where actually we found almost 300 improper transactions that he posted, he kept switching from one account to another account,” Vaudt says. He says there were a few people who lost about $1,300 of their money from the transactions.

The audit covered August 2008 through August 2010. Vaudt says Gogola did bring in a personal check for nearly $1,000 after he had left U.N.I. and other employees called him and questioned him about one of the transactions. Vaudt made some suggestions to U.N.I. to improve their system to avoid future problems.

Those suggestions included segregating the duties in the ticket office to ensure oversight, and he suggested the university look at its system to ensure that ticket pricing is entered correctly and that voided and returned tickets are handled appropriately. U.N.I. issued a statement saying the school is contacting anyone who may’ve lost money and will mail them checks to cover the stolen funds.

The university statement also said it will seek restitution from Gogola, and has already instituted most of the recommendations made by the auditor.

The results of the audit have been turned over to the University’s Department of Public Safety, the Division of Criminal Investigation, the Black Hawk County Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office.

See the complete audit report here: UNItix report PDF

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Tuition increase given final approval by the Board of Regents

December 8, 2011 By

The Board of Regents gave final approval to the proposed 3.75% tuition increase during their meeting. The student leadership at all three universities supported the increase during its first reading in October as it is one of the lowest proposed increases in several years.

Regent Ruth Harkin of Cumming was the only regent to vote against the increase. “I do want to say that I appreciate very much the efforts to keep tuition down, I am going to have to vote no on this however, because I do feel that most Iowans incomes have not kept up with inflation. I think this is a tough time for them to have to incur further expense if they have students at the university,” Harkin says, “So I’m just hoping that next year we’ll be able to work harder to find better solutions.”

Regent Bruce Rastetter of Alden said the increase was fair based on the economic situation.”One of the areas that we’ve worked hard on in the proposal is to try and keep the tuition increase as low as we could and then to keep it at the rate of inflations, so in light of the budget cuts that we’ve had over the last four or five years that the institutions have weathered those,” Rastetter said.

Rastetter also reminded everyone that the increase they approved is based on the schools not seeing any more cuts in state spending.

“Clearly it is extremely important that our appropriations request to the legislature be approved for us to be able to accomplish this mission, and clearly to continue to find ways that the longer term the universities can save money and continue to effectively deliver a high-quality, accessible, low-cost education,” Rastetter said.

Regents president, Craig Lang was not at the meeting, but said earlier in the week that the regent schools have taken their fair share of budget cuts, while the Department of Education and community colleges saw their budgets increase.

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Regents president asks for more funds at budget hearing

December 6, 2011 By

The president of the board the governs the three state-supported universities is urging the governor to increase funding next year or risk jeopardizing the quality of education offered at the schools. Regents president, Craig Lang, spoke about funding during a budget hearing at the statehouse.

“Iowa public universities have borne the brunt of educational cuts. The department of education and community colleges saw increases in funding the last two years as universities continued to receive additional cuts,” Lang said. Lang says the regents can only hold the line on tuition increases at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa for so long without more state dollars.

Lang says, “The universities will continue fundraising efforts that are largely focused on increasing the endowment of student scholarships, however despite our efforts, the options available to us are not enough, and we seek the state support to keep our tuition increases as low as possible.”

Lang told the governor and his aides that the universities have maintained high standards while state support has dwindled to 1977 levels. The governor’s top budget advisor says it’s too early to predict what the governor will recommend for the regents institutions.

The Board of Regents is scheduled to meet this Thursday to consider a proposed 3.75% tuition increase. The student leadership at all three universities supported the increase during its first reading in October, as it is one of the lowest in several years.

But the regents said at the time they might have to reconsider the increase with any further cuts in state funds.

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