The UVA Slush Fund Scandal Isn’t Going Away
The University of Virginia has several reputations. The word “silo” comes to mind as they grapple with the reality that there is a world outside of Charlottesville.
What’s more interesting to me — in the short term anyhow — is just how regionalized certain parts of Virginia truly are when it comes to the media. These bubbles work to reassure the home front… but when bigger dogs come rushing in (like the Washington Post)? UVA doesn’t fare so well under scrutiny.
…and that is what we have here.
To wit, from today’s Richmond Times Dispatch, we find out that the attention former UVA rector Helen Dragas has put on the budget is earning wide bi-partisan concern:
In letters Tuesday to the university and to three state investigative agencies, the lawmakers say their examination of investment reports provided by U.Va. appear to show that the balances were transferred to the fund a month before the university’s governing board voted to create it in February 2016.
The letters are signed by Sens. William R. DeSteph Jr., R-Virginia Beach; J. Chapman “Chap” Petersen, D-Fairfax City; and John A. Cosgrove Jr., R-Chesapeake; and Dels. Barry D. Knight, R-Virginia Beach; Scott W. Taylor, R-Virginia Beach; Glenn R. Davis Jr., R-Virginia Beach; and Robert S. Bloxom Jr., R-Accomack.
Identical letters were sent to the state attorney general, inspector general and auditor of public accounts.
That’s not all. The Charlottesville Daily Progress is repeating the spin from the region’s largest employer with the standard and practiced UVA response to every scandal — nothing to see here, move along:
“We have absolutely nothing to hide,” Hogan said, adding that he is looking forward to an upcoming audit by the Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts.
. . .
The investment fund originated with more than $1 billion in investment returns that had accumulated between 2009 and 2014. Officials had talked about using this money to pay for some of the projects outlined in UVa’s strategic plan, passed in 2013. The Cornerstone Plan, as it’s called, lays out a broad series of goals, including improvements to UVa’s technological infrastructure and a wave of faculty hires.
The plan — initially priced at $564 million over five years — was not completely funded when it was passed, and there was concern that costs could be passed on in the form of tuition. The idea was to take some of the investment returns that had accumulated over the years and use them to pay for these improvements.
What follows is an excessively detailed and well-fed series of numbers and information that only a PAO could admire — verbatim.
Problem is, no one in Richmond is buying that explanation. Not even a little bit.
Former Delegate David Ramadan offers up his thoughts in today’s Roanoke Times, and the result is a blistering condemnation of UVA’s less-than-transparent methods as they treat the General Assembly as yet another “constituency”:
Responding to the uproar, the university calls it “transformational.” I’ll say. Using $50 million for yoga and meditation would transform any taxpayer’s level of anger at what I’d call a Charlottesville version of Three Card Monte.
. . .
Equally troubling is how much effort has gone into making everything seem normal when it hasn’t been.
Rather than engaging — rather than talking about how this $2.3 billion windfall could secure the futures for a generation of Virginia’s kids who only want the chance to get an affordable education at a world-class school — we’ve been treated to a lecture about process.
Rather than coming clean — rather than having a conversation about how even a modest portion of Virginia’s newest pot of gold could be used to roll back tuition— we’ve been given a seminar with statistics to justify the status quo.
Ramadan’s op-ed is worth reading in full, because it captures Richmond’s shock and disgust with the “covert surplus” horded by the University.
My concerns are threefold. First, the University of Virginia and the City of Charlottesville is already mired in scandal and mishandled public relations episodes. Second, the growing evidence that Helen Dragas was indeed on to something continues to accumulate — and it is something the Board of Visitors can no longer ignore if UVA is to remain a world class institution and not merely a job factory for academics. Third, the siloed nature of the response from UVA officials… the treatment of Virginia’s General Assembly as a mere “constituency” among others… the disconnect from real world concerns… the treatment of Dragas… the controlled presentation of facts in the Charlottesville press…
There’s a reason why the Washington Post is taking such interest in UVA, and it’s not just the Rolling Stone scandal and the cover-up afterwards. There’s a reason why the Virginia General Assembly is using words like “ombudsman” and “auditor” to describe the need for oversight at the institution which bears its name. There’s a reason why business leaders such as Dragas — and those in the business community across the mid-Atlantic who count her as a professional — are concerned. There’s a reason why students at every level are concerned. There’s a reason why parents stroking the tuition checks are concerned.
The old sclerosis that smiles and waits for the reputation of Mr. Jefferson’s University to let it all blow over hasn’t worked these last few years… whether the wolf blows down the straw house is irrelevant at this point — that’s happening. Whether leadership at the University opts for a house of sticks, or the more permanent (and far more transparent) option of brick is something else altogether.
There’s a reason why the media is hovering over Charlottesville.
DISCLAIMER: The author is a fourth-year BIS undergraduate at the University of Virginia.
