Florida A&M Follies Part 2 or how I get paid without even working

The Tallahassee Democrat is reporting that an audit done at Florida A&M university has led to the firing of 41 employees and another 70 could be in jeopardy. This isn't my first blog post on FAMU. Read here and here

FAMU has sent the 69 ghost employees three certified letters requiring they show up in person. The letters say, "Come and get it," Bryant said. If the school still doesn't receive a response from a fourth letter to be mailed out next week, Bryant said, those employees will be turned over to state financial investigators.What FAMU's 41 fired employees did wrong is unclear. Twenty-three of the 41 worked in the school's Institute on Urban Policy and Research. Janie Greenleaf, assistant vice president for human resources, said the remaining terminated workers came from across the university and were let go for a variety of reasons.

and

More review is being done of 286 employees who have multiple jobs with the university. Their combined pay totals $3.3 million. The audit already has found employees who are leaving their primary job early to report to the second position, employees not showing up for work at all and employees being paid for time not worked.

The audit turned up employees with campus responsibilities who were living elsewhere with full-time positions at other organizations.

As horrendous as all this is, yesterday there was more news out of the university.

Despite strong reservations from individual members, the Florida A&M Board of Trustees voted to approve the athletic department's proposed 2005-06 budget, which will result in the elimination of four programs.

FAMU interim Athletic Director E. Newton Jackson made the decision to cut men's tennis, men's golf and men's and women's swimming in order to trim the budget to $6.7 million - a $2.5 million reduction from the fiscal year that ended Thursday.

Jackson revised his Wednesday projection that cutting the four sports would save the athletic department $340,000, stating during Thursday's BOT meeting that the actual budget reduction would be more than $630,000 after accounting for the elimination of travel, uniforms, equipment and salary expenses for those programs

Jackson also revealed that the remaining 14 sports would receive across-the-board cuts of 16 percent instead of the 10-percent reduction he stated Wednesday. He added that the budget for athletic administration would be reduced by seven percent.

Scholarships and Athletics are being cut because of this school's horrendous mismanagement. All I can say is I hope the Leon County State Proesecutor's office aggressively pursues criminal charges against all parties involved. This is an absolute disgrace at Florida's biggest black university.