A cozy relationship

Florida A&M Law school Dean Percy Luney has been placed on paid administrative leave after it was discovered a contributor to the school was on the payroll without actually performing any work for or at the school.

This story reminds me of an old 60 minutes piece where they showed New York City school janitors working on their boats while on the clock. The entire story can be found at=
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/11839501.htm

FAMU law school's dean placed on indefinite leave
By Melanie YeagerDEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER

The dean of Florida A&M University's College of Law has been placed on paid administrative leave following a universitywide payroll audit that turned up a nonworking employee on the school's payroll.

Interim President Castell Bryant announced Tuesday that James Douglas, former president of Texas Southern University, will be interim dean and that Percy Luney, the new school's founding dean, is on leave indefinitely. Luney could not be reached for comment.

The change in leadership comes at a critical time for FAMU's law school, which moves into its new building in Orlando and faces a review for full accreditation this fall. Among other things, accreditors will be considering how well the school's first graduating class fares on the Bar exam next month. The school already secured provisional accreditation in August.

"Without question, Dean Douglas has the skills to give us what we need during this period," Bryant said in a prepared statement. "Together, we will work to protect and secure the integrity of our law school."

The payroll audit, which began March 31, indicated Shirley Cunningham, who gave FAMU's resurrected law school its first major gift of $1million for an endowed chair, was receiving pay every two weeks even though he wasn't seen at the school. Cunningham is an attorney based in Lexington, Ky.

"We hired him in the fall 2003," FAMU Provost Larry Robinson said of Cunningham. "The question is whether he actually worked. That's one of the issues that we discovered in the payroll audit."

LaNedra Carroll, university spokeswoman, said Cunningham is no longer on the payroll and was listed as an associate instructor. His name does not appear in a faculty list on the law school's Web site. When Cunningham gave the gift in 2001, he credited former President Frederick Humphries for inspiring him to become a lawyer when Humphries was president of Tennessee State University.

Robinson said he met with Luney on Monday to tell him he was being relieved of his duties and placed on administrative leave. Luney cleaned out his office early Tuesday morning.