From time-to-time I try to focus here on the differences between RO1 and PUI/MCU programs. Today the NY Daily News brings us a story about the difference between public and private universities.
It seems that the former NYU chemistry department budget coordinator had over a period of five years, submitted 13,000 receipts culled from the garbage of a local liquor store to support requests for petty cash. The university forked over $409,000 to cover these bogus expenses until a student delivering the expense report paperwork questioned the deal. Those of us at publics shake our heads as we stand in line at the local staple depot buying our own whiteboard pens out of our 10% lower paychecks so we can teach class.
Public colleges and universities are so afraid of one penny being misspent that they spend large sums of money to make sure fraud does not occur. I am sure some still does occur, but having no state funded department operating budget and needing all the dollars we can get in donations just to pay to operate the program keeps the amounts available for fraud pretty low. Hell, $409,000 would cover our entire department operating budget for something over five years. And at NYU it's part of the petty cash budget.
Oh yea! And publics generally won't even let you use donations for liquor.
T.S. Hall
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The argument that public institutions are somehow better managed is not rooted in fact. California State Auditor Elaine Howle found David Ernst spent $152,441 that exceeded reimbursement limits while at CSU this year. UCSC Chancellor Denice Denton committed suicide in 2006 after it was found she had >$600,000 in upgrades to her university provided home and I'm not mentioning all the nepotism she is accused of either.
ReplyDeleteThis year was a good example of misappropriations of public funds. The stimulus bill passed by Obama (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) saw $6.8 billion go to 440 districts that did not exist!
I doubt even private universities truly rely totally on private funds, examples: Federal Student Aid (loans&grants), NIH/NSF Grants, medicare funded medical residencies, etc.