JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Auditor Nicole Galloway announced Thursday that her office has created to audits into the state’s public universities, including one designed to look at the financial decisions made by the University of Missouri system administration. The other will look at college affordability and accessibility at the state’s public four-year colleges.
These audits will combine with two existing audits pertaining to higher education around the state – one examining performance based funding for higher education, and the other, an agency wide audit of the Department of Higher Education.
Galloway, who noted that she holds degrees from the University of Missouri flagship campus in Columbia as well as the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, says that these inspections are designed to reaffirm public trust in these institutions.
“Our public colleges and universities must be transparent and accountable to Missouri families,” Galloway said. “Our investment to public colleges and universities is one of the most important things that we do together. Our institutions mean a great deal to us, no matter what part of Missouri we call home. They are anchors to communities, they are employers, they are drivers of economic success, and they help shape our outstanding citizens.
“With those contributions comes responsibility. That responsibility is how to account for Missouri taxpayer dollars and how they are spent.”
With the turmoil surrounding the University of Missouri system the past few months, Galloway declined to spot one specific instance that prompted the audit. Whether it was the Planned Parenthood debacle that consumed the university last summer and fall, the decision by higher-ups to revoke health insurance from graduate students, the Concerned Student 1950 protests that ousted then- System President Tim Wolfe from office or increased questions about spending on what some might call frivolous expenditures, like a new $1.4 million golf course for University of Missouri-St. Louis and a proposed new hospital project in Columbia.
Instead, Galloway said that the myriad of issues raised by the public demanded some investigation into the system’s spending.
“It is not an individual instance or one individual event,” she said. “It’s a collection and a totality of looking at these things at a higher level. What we’re focused on is how revenues are coming in in the financial area, and then decisions made at the top on how they are spent.”
She stressed that this audit was an audit of the system, not an in depth look at other issues that have been raised of the Columbia campus – like its leave policy or expenditures on teachers pursuing research.
However, she left answers up in the air as to what expenditures she would investigate, but stressed that it would be an apolitical audit.
“As far as the specific scope of things that we’re looking at, we just started that audit, so we don’t know what we’ll find,” she said. “Rushing to judgement and trying to make predetermined judgments that’s not a sign of a good leader and it’s not a sign of a good auditor. We need to go in and be fair, we need to be thorough, find what those audit results are and then report those to the public.”
Galloway also remarked that her office was tracking legislation by Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Glendale, which would call for an annual audit of the University of Missouri system. She also highlighted that the institution had not been audited in decades.
“It has been sometime since the system has been audited,” she said. “You can value education, but that doesn’t mean it is immune from review.”
Mike Middleton, the interim system president at MU, said that the university would hold up when put under review and welcomed the audit.
“The University of Missouri System prides itself in being excellent stewards of the resources entrusted to us, including taxpayer, donor and tuition funds, which has been demonstrated by the $77 million saved by the UM System due to efficiencies and effectiveness measures in just the past two years alone,” he said in a statement. “We are also committed to being completely transparent and open about our operations, and welcome the review announced today by Missouri’s State Auditor.”
