Budget shortfalls at Perimeter College go back several years
As the AJC delves deeper into the financial crisis at Georgia Perimeter College, new questions emerge in light of what seem to be serial shortfalls at the school.
Who was minding the store at the campus and at the Regents? Will students and faculty return to a diminished campus and offerings as a result of what could be a $16 million shortfall this year?
The newspaper reports that the budget deficit that drove Georgia Perimeter College President Anthony Tricoli from office last week was not the school’s first, or even second or third.
Many of the posters have said that Tricoli was unaware of the massive shortfalls. But, as we have been discussing on the blogs on the firing of principals in APS schools where there was widespread cheating, aren’t top leaders responsible for what occurs under their watch?
State audits and a University System analysis show the school has been overspending its budget by millions of dollars for the past four years and has whittled down its cash reserves to almost nothing as Tricoli dipped into the funds to cover the deficits.
In both fiscal 2009 and 2010, the school spent more than $7 million more than it took in from tuition, fees, grants and state and federal appropriations. In fiscal 2011, the shortfall fell to $5 million. This year, which ends June 30, the deficit could hit $16 million, the largest shortfall in memory — and possibly ever — at a state college.
“If it turns out to be $16 million, I would say this is unprecedented,” said Claire Arnold, director of the education audit division of the State Department of Audits and Accounts.
The school’s reserves fell from $9.2 million in 2008 to $288,000 when this fiscal year began last July.
Neither University System Chancellor Hank Huckaby nor Tricoli would answer questions about the financial crisis. Tricoli, who has been singled out for praise by Huckaby in the past, referred the AJC to his lawyer.
Tricoli, once considered a rising star in the system, was moved into a central office job, and the school’s top financial officer had already been scheduled to retire. But the impact of the fiscal crisis on students and faculty at the nearly 27,000-student two-year college could be far-reaching.
University System officials have been vague so far about the impact on students and faculty. They are still looking at the school’s books.
But Huckaby said in a letter to the college community that the shortfall will follow the school into next year, and the consequences could include layoffs.
“We do not know at this time precisely the impact in every budget area, but it will be significant and will likely impact personnel,” he wrote. “These actions are necessary to address a shortfall of this magnitude.”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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78 comments Add your comment
bootney farnsworth
May 14th, 2012
8:08 am
@ catlady,
consider except for Gwinnett all the main metro school systems are infested with cronyism, nepotism, fiscal mismanagement/incompetence, and are run like concentration camps.
now add us to the list of untrustworthy, irresponsible, possibly criminal abusers. and we’re not alone
in the USG – we’re just the worst. can’t wait to see what comes out once Adams is gone from UGA
seems to me Georgia has a major issue with education, top to bottom I’ve become convinced the corruption is so pervasive it’s terminal. I strongly urge anyone and everyone with the opportunity to get the hell out as fast as possible.
a few of us will stay to provide hospice until the patient dies, but the patient will die.
then what?
Alanis NotMorrisette
May 14th, 2012
8:11 am
@bootney: “who are we, and who do we serve?
“are we a large two year school which helps bridge young people to the next phase of their lives, or are we aiming to be the next big thing in education competing with UGA?”
Yeah. I was proud to be a part of an organization that gave people a leg up. GPC is the only two year unit in the USG. That’s something special and unique that Georgia needs.
What Georgia doesn’t need is a welfare state for the friends and families of “important” people.
Ktparrish
May 14th, 2012
8:45 am
Both the president and the VP for Admin had to know. The president sets the spending profile for a college; a good financial officer tries to find the funds to support the president’s agenda.
When I came to the college in 2009, I was amazed at the number of costly projects on the table. I was told that one other major expenditure was servicing the debt from the Newton campus, which had been constructed in a way that bypased normal USG capital construction funding. I don’t know if that was true or not.
I hope that USG will do everything possible to preserve the jobs of the staff and faculty, especially those making less than 50k and part timers. These folks have toiled for years withiut even a cost of living raise, suffering through furloughs which are often proportionately harder on them than administrators making 70k or more (of course their are exceptions on both sides). They deserve at least as much consideration for their future as the president and Admin VP.
No Dictator Left Behind
May 14th, 2012
10:55 am
Former BoR employee here. Worked at three different institutions, including GPC, over the course of nine years.
I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that irresponsibility is a commonality to all of the schools that I worked at. Most times this comes in the form of budgetary problems, which go largely unaccounted. Sometimes you have stories that break the front page for a short time, causes the general populous to rabble a bit, then fades off into the old-news ether.
However, the real problems are actually worse than it seems on the surface: there is a culture of politicizing and backstabbing especially at the administrative level. Constant power struggles between departments, the administrators and the academics, grantors and academics leave many employees empathetic and students either ignored or placated just to shut them up. These struggles aren’t the kind that foster friendly competition but (were sometimes introduced intentionally in order to) cause confusion. Divide and conquer is a very useful tactic. Tricoli was a master at this, especially when it came to non-academic departments like student services and information technology.
Those that champion those political games tend “fall up”, meaning that they were given special favor when it came time fill vacancies. Countless qualified people have been passed over for promotion for lesser qualified yet more-menable-to-the-party lackeys. In countless other instances, when there were friends in need of jobs, positions would just be created and friends placed into those positions without any sort of real vetting process for that “candidate” or any other. Rumor has it that this is what eventually caused the peeling back of the covers on this very case: certain directors were demoted in light of ethics abuse charges against Il Presidente when he forced a position under said director for one of his friends from Georgia State University – the power struggle came to head and the news agencies got wind of it (thankfully).
Tricoli was there to create and expand an empire, empowered by the BoR’s inability to keep anyone in check. If he is innocent of anything, it’s him bullying the other kids because the parents refused to discipline much less watch over the kid.
This too shall pass, and the culture of corruption will yet again resume. Only a drastic change in the culture of the BoR – top down – will even begin to start repairing the damages that have been done.
Prof
May 14th, 2012
10:56 am
To make my point more succinctly than I did in my 10:45 pm post yesterday:
Quite recently, the Regents changed their Policy to end the longstanding practice of USG schools finding places for their tenured faculty to continue when programs end due to “financial exigency.” BOR defines “faculty” so that Presidents are technically considered faculty, although it’s probably too much to hope that they too will be bounced in such cases.
SO GPC has caused a significant change of Regents Policy on tenured faculty for all USG faculty, not just those of GPC.
No Dictator Left Behind
May 14th, 2012
11:00 am
@bootney farnsworth
> a few of us will stay to provide hospice until the patient dies
Pull the plug.
Prof
May 14th, 2012
11:41 am
@ No Dictator Left Behind, May 14th, 10:55 am: “Former BoR employee here. Worked at three different institutions, including GPC, over the course of nine years.”
Some questions. Did those three institutions include any of the four research Universities? Big difference between them and the second-tier schools.
Was your position faculty or administration? If the latter, how do you know with certainty about what goes on in the academic side of things? There’s also a big difference between faculty politics and administrative politics.
Prof
May 14th, 2012
12:21 pm
@ No Dictator Left Behind.
Also, if you were faculty, was it in a transient non-tenure-track position, or a tenure-track one? Nine years in three schools suggests the former. Adjuncts, part-time, and temporary faculty don’t usually have access to knowledge about the departmental politics of the tenure-track, permanent faculty.
No Dictator Left Behind
May 14th, 2012
2:19 pm
@Prof
> Did those three institutions include any of the four research Universities?
Yes. And the misuse of funds was just as bad. The big difference is that when you’re the 800lb gorilla in the room and you’re bringing in tons of grant money from the NSF, Microsoft, Samsung, and IBM, you can tell the BoR to go away and they will. GPC obviously didn’t have that luxury.
> Was your position faculty or administration
Administrative, but one position was in an academic support role (I ‘reported’ to an administrator but took orders from faculty chairs).
It’s not difficult to passively observe those misappropriations – many times they are blatant. The academic sides of the house had issues but they weren’t nearly as bad as the administrative side. Academics, as a whole, made honest efforts with a few outliers whose sole purpose was to make a name for themselves (usually research professors). This is to be expected in large organizations. Many units on the administrative sides had to justify their existence.
Prof
May 14th, 2012
2:56 pm
@ No Dictator. I see your point about Universities that bring in big grant monies getting a certain amount of leeway from the Regents.
I guess it’s our different perspectives, but I would consider faculty chairs as administrators. They certainly tend to side with their Deans…if they wish to continue as chairs.
From the Inside
May 14th, 2012
3:54 pm
Cheers to Rob Watts! The VPAA and Dean of English have been moved back to faculty positions. Two worthy replacements having been made as interim for each position
bootney farnsworth
May 14th, 2012
5:02 pm
@ inside
don’t tease me. is this real?
LosBravos
May 14th, 2012
5:07 pm
@bootney – if you actually work at GPC, you would have gotten the email. It was a genmail sent out today, just before 2:00 pm.
PissedProf
May 14th, 2012
6:23 pm
Very glad about some of the personnel changes so far. Guess there is a small bright spot in this mess. I’m still pacing the floor about summer pay and furloughs next year……
@bootney, as always, I appreciate your comments.
Concerned
May 14th, 2012
8:54 pm
Waycross College’s budget in 2011 was less than 10 million dollars.
LosBravos
May 14th, 2012
9:35 pm
@Concerned – total enrollment is 960. Just a hair under GPC (eyeroll)
georgias sun
May 14th, 2012
10:29 pm
@LosBravos…you did ask Concerned to name a college whose budget was under 16 million. And they did. You didn’t state any conditions on the enrollment. I am sure there are a few other smaller colleges in the state that are under 16 million whose enrollment may be less than GPC’s.
Maybe it would be better to compare the cost per student than overall budgets.
Mr Tibbs
May 15th, 2012
8:08 am
At cost per student GPC would be run more efficiently than Waycross. $10 million for roughly 1,000 students would translate to $270 million for a 27,000 student population. GPC educates 27,000 students with a budget of less than $200 million. That’s substantial compared to Waycross.
Alanis NotMorrisette
May 15th, 2012
8:14 am
@No Dictator Left Behind: “Rumor has it that this is what eventually caused the peeling back of the covers on this very case: certain directors were demoted in light of ethics abuse charges against Il Presidente when he forced a position under said director for one of his friends from Georgia State University – the power struggle came to head and the news agencies got wind of it (thankfully).”
Either I know exactly which department you’re talking about, or it happened more than one. Both seem equally likely. Was this OIT?
(I know I smacked the CIO in an earlier comment over The Toilet Debacle, but in this case I’d be rooting for the CIO. My understanding was that this dispute all but came to celebrity deathmatch-style claymation violence.)
Alanis NotMorrisette
May 15th, 2012
8:23 am
@LosBravos You’re assuming bootney reads his genmails, aka “DeathNet” for its proliferation of “We’re sad to announce that Marcy in housekeeping’s second cousin Ted was run down by a sanitation truck and killed. Services will be held at Hoe Down Memorial in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Please send flowers,” emails. Most GPC employees I know filter genmails to either their own special folder or directly to the trash so their email will be usable.
RR_other
May 15th, 2012
10:23 am
All GPC employees should be looking for jobs in other USG institutions. Don’t be part of a sinking ship. With the merger of several colleges, merge GPC with another fiscally sound university in Metro Atlanta. In regard to termination of tenured faculty, that is why it is tenure— you can’t be terminated if you have tenure.
Prof
May 15th, 2012
11:18 am
@ RR_other. Tenure can be suspended in certain circumstances, one of which is “financial exigency” of the institution. Better review the Regents Policy, section 8 (Personnel):
“8.5.1 Definition of Financial Exigency
Financial exigency occurs when circumstances cause a shortfall in projected revenues for general operations as compared with projected expenditures over the same period, and such shortfall would have a material adverse effect on the operation of either an institution, an academic or other unit of an institution, or the USG generally. In the event of reduced appropriations, declining enrollments, or other actions or events that compel a reduction in the USG’s or an institution’s current operations budget, the Board of Regents may, in its exercise of fiscal responsibility, reduce the operation of, modify, or close one or more USG institutions. Such reductions, modifications, or closings may require the reduction of salaries, layoffs, or terminations of tenured faculty, non-tenured faculty, or other contract employees before the expiration of their contract term.”
Good advice for GPC employees to seek employment at other USG institutions, but be aware that many of them have hiring freezes in effect due to the budget cuts since 2008.
Prof
May 15th, 2012
1:00 pm
I just re-checked the Regents Policy, 8.5.2 (Layoffs and Terminations), and see that I was incorrect in my earlier posts of May 13, 10:45 pm and May 14, 10:56 am. I’m glad I was wrong, but sorry if I misled anyone. This is what’s stated in the present Section 8.5.2:
“Layoffs or terminations may occur within an academic or other units of an institution without a net loss of faculty members or other personnel at the institution; that is, layoffs or terminations in some academic or other units may occur with simultaneous authorization of new positions for different duties in academic or other units depending upon the needs of such units.
The president of each institution, after consultation with faculty and staff, shall determine whether layoffs or terminations are required and which employees will be affected. This determination shall be made in accordance with the procedures established by the Chancellor, and will give primary consideration to the maintenance of a sound and balanced educational program that is consistent with the functions and responsibilities of the institution.”
Of course, creating new positions in a situation of financial exigency for the institution isn’t too likely, so these paragraphs may be irrelevant anyway.
And I note that the Regents Policy was updated on May 3, 2012. When did GPC’s budget deficit become public?
Faculty and other employees under contract who are laid off or terminated before the end of their contract terms for reasons of financial exigency shall, whenever possible, be notified at least ninety (90) days in advance of the date of layoff or termination. The notice of layoff or termination shall be delivered personally or by certified mail, with return receipt requested.
Prof
May 15th, 2012
1:03 pm
Sorry—the last paragraph above is part of the quote from Section 8.5.2.
taxpaying teacher
May 15th, 2012
3:30 pm
Everything after the period in this sentence is excerpted from an email Interim President Watts sent out at 2:26 today.
GPC Faculty and Staff Colleagues:
Mr. Ron Carruth, Executive Vice President for Fiscal Affairs, and Ms. Sheletha Champion, Associate Vice President for Fiscal Affairs, have both left the College. Effective tomorrow, they are no longer employees of GPC
Concerned
May 15th, 2012
9:29 pm
@georgias sun
Thank you!
GPC Family
May 17th, 2012
9:33 am
Comparing Francesco Schettino, Kenneth Lay, and Anthony Tricoli. One leaves you with your money at peril, the next takes your money, and the last spends your money; and all three are the first to jump ship before it sinks.
BOR Created this mess not Tricoli
July 7th, 2012
7:59 am
I don’t usually agree with Bootney, but today I agree with her comments about the BOR, they are not here to help GPC. They knew about the Audit Reports for years but did nothing to alert the college president. He didn’t know because he trusted his budget staff to know and tell him if anything was wrong. Big mistake Trusting Budget Staff!
I am a faculty member who was on the Strategic Planning Budget Committee, and I can tell you this, not one time in three years did the budget people ever utter a word about being in the red. In fact, they told us all (including Tricoli) that we were in the black. They lied to him just like they lied to all of us.
You may not like Tricoli’s way of doing things, but he did get things done. He did fight for us as a college, he did have funds put aside as he promised for our raises, it was all in the budget, I saw that line item with my own eyes. Todd Hendricks will tell you, it was put there by Tricoli when Hendricks was Faculty Senate Chaiperson. Tricoli was great with students, and for faculty and staff alike, and the community loved him. He was a political master, BUT he was undone from above and below, and also from inside his own office. You can hate him if you want, but I watched him in action in those budget discussions, he always asked tough questions, and he was lied to each and every time. I know that know because of all that is coming to the surface.
The culprits here are the BOR and the USG (Watts included). Tricoli was beat up every step of the way, and he was beat up trying to protect us (GPC). Look how quickly they took him out, they never gave him a chance to explain what really happened. I hope we all learn one day what really happened, right now its all circumspect. But I know a part of this because I was a member of that Budget Committee, and I am telling you straight up that the finance people lied do all of us including Dr. T. He was set up as the Fall Guy.
I didn’t agree with all of his decisions, but I certainly respect him for what he did to save our college in 2007 (not to mention 350 jobs) and for his ability to take a punch. He got beat up for us for five years. Let’s not forget that.