The University of Colorado Foundation raises more than $80 million a year and handles more than $700 million in assets to benefit the state’s flagship university. Its contributions have become more essential to the university’s mission as state support has waxed and waned.
Recently the state audited the foundation. There were a few items to raise an eyebrow, but if you were expecting to froth at the mouth, well, you may be surprised.
The biggest outrage to emerge from four years of spending records is that the foundation paid expenses when then-president Betsy Hoffman let a rented limo idle for a few hours while she chatted with donors or attended official functions.
Yikes!
Hoffman called for the audit last year when allegations swirled that the athletic department spent from a slush-fund with little oversight. A second audit that covers that territory will be out next month and perhaps it will ring a bell or two. But the audit into CU’s foundation, released this past week, was a relative yawner.
A few details of shoddy bookkeeping emerged – if there was any bookkeeping at all, in some instances – and the audit found some $700,000 was improperly spent on food, alcohol and travel. That’s less than .25 percent of what the foundation raised in four years. It’s nothing to be proud of, but we have to ask, how much does your company misspend in a year?
In a state that has slashed funding for higher education by 30 percent in recent years, the foundation plays a crucial role. It collects anywhere between $80 million and $100 million a year for CU. For comparison, the state cut funding to CU by $228 milion from 2002 to 2004.
Auditors did discover several items that show a certain unseemly arrogance. Critics have fixated on an invoice for $1,300 allowed five employees to stay at a hotel – 35 miles from home – and a $680 charter flight to shuttle football coach Gary Barnett from Englewood to Broomfield.
Now that such episodes have been revealed, we’re confident they won’t be repeated. CU President Hank Brown was hired to scrub up the school’s image, and we were glad to see his pledge to enforce all 21 recommendations made by the auditors.
CU also may pull back the $7.5 million a year it now gives the foundation for operating costs. Considering what the foundation raises, it’s not a bad idea.
Meanwhile, if Hank Brown needs to take a car service to a fundraising function, he should be allowed to do so without apology.
