KSU expected to hire an outside auditor as Gov. Beshear’s office hears ‘concerns’
There are concerns about the financial health of Kentucky State University in Frankfort just as the school is moving ahead with a $50 million, debt-financed dormitory and dining hall approved by the Kentucky legislature.
On Sunday, Gov. Andy Beshear’s office confirmed that it is hearing some anxiety from inside the historically black college in the state capital.
“Several regents recently reached out to the administration with concerns related to Kentucky State University. Administration officials have been in contact with regents and the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education to gather more information about the issues they have raised,” Beshear’s office said in a statement.
The KSU Board of Regents has called a special meeting for Tuesday to hire an outside auditor to “review the current financial status of Kentucky State University,” according to the board’s agenda. The agenda also contemplates going into closed-door sessions to discuss personnel and legal actions.
A week ago, at another specially called meeting held largely in closed session, KSU President M. Christopher Brown II asked the board to approve a new line of credit authorization. KSU’s annual standing line of credit last year was raised to $5 million as a “precaution,” school financial officials told the Faculty Senate.
Several members of the Board of Regents did not respond to the Herald-Leader’s request for comment, including Chairwoman Elaine Farris, a former Shelby County school superintendent.
KSU’s budget this fiscal year is $49.9 million, of which $27.1 million comes from the state’s General Fund.
Also, the legislature last year authorized a $55.5 million bond to build a 400-bed dormitory and dining hall on the KSU campus using private financing. The construction will be KSU’s first so-called “P3” project, or public-private partnership. CRM Companies of Lexington will operate and maintain the property through an entity called KSU Campus Housing LLC. KSU will finance it through a 35-year lease.
In testimony to state lawmakers in April, Brown said KSU needs more campus housing for its roughly 2,200 students. The school pays about $3.4 million a year to house several hundred students off-campus, including in Frankfort hotels, Brown said.
Apart from financial concerns, KSU has been fighting a half-dozen lawsuits this year alleging various acts of misconduct by its leaders. Among them is a claim that KSU fired a whistle-blower, a campus counselor named Xavier Dillard, for calling attention to the alleged sexual harassment of students by several school officials, all now departed. A Franklin Circuit Court judge has cleared that case for trial despite KSU’s motions for dismissal.
In another suit, KSU paid $150,000 to settle a whistle-blower claim by a former official who said Brown “improperly interfered” with the award of a dining services contract to help a losing bidder. In a third, a hostile workplace complaint, an ex-official says the president described female school employees using crude language, including “kitchen bitch,” a claim the school denies in its court response.
Brown was president of Alcorn State University, an historically Black college in Mississippi, until he resigned in 2014 amid a state investigation into school purchasing practices. KSU hired him in 2017.
