Posted on 08/14/2003 5:31:34 AM PDT by GailA
http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/midsouth_news/article/0,1426,MCA_1497_2180978,00.html
Audit shows Shumaker lived it up while UT paid the bill By Duncan Mansfield, The Associated Press August 14, 2003
KNOXVILLE - Former University of Tennessee president John Shumaker tipped well, traveled extensively and lived lavishly, according to an internal audit released Wednesday.
It listed such expenditures as $6,000 for a flight to Greece, more than $165,000 for tailgate parties, and nearly $500,000 for furnishings and improvements to his residence.
"I think people will be mad about it and I think that anger is appropriate," Gov. Phil Bredesen, who is chairman of the UT Board of Trustees, said at a press conference in Nashville.
"At a time when you're asking students to bear increases in their tuition, when we have departments in state government that are laying people off . . . to be doing this kind of stuff, I don't think it was good judgment and it's the kind of thing that has cost Dr. Shumaker his job."
Shumaker resigned Friday amid growing scrutiny of his spending habits and ethical lapses after a little more than a year on the job as the highest paid president in UT's history, with a salary package of more than $730,000 a year.
UT trustees are expected to select an interim president at an Aug. 21 meeting.
The 51-page audit, which was requested by Shumaker and took 13 auditors 2,500 hours to complete, confirmed media reports suggesting Shumaker was spending big while the university was facing a budget crunch.
"I do not believe he felt the level of investments as he would view them - the expenditures - were inappropriate," UT spokesman Tom Ballard said of Shumaker's misguided efforts to build support for the 42,000-student university. "It is a different view."
Trustee Steve Ennis of Tullahoma, chairman of the trustees' finance committee, said that based on the audit he would have recommended Shumaker step down if he hadn't already done so.
"I can assure you that all of our members of the board take this report very seriously," Ennis said. "We recognize that these activities took place on our watch (and) . . . we apologize to all Tennesseans."
The audit said Shumaker billed the university for thousands of dollars in personal travel expenses, including a $6,000 airline ticket to Greece, and frequently stayed in upgraded hotel rooms.
He ordered $493,137 in additions and furnishings for the UT president's official residence, a mansion in tony Sequoyah Hills, less than a year after it underwent a $787,597 renovation.
Among the additions were three home entertainment systems, a $30,116 telephone system, a $7,000 Persian rug and a $4,800 outdoor grill. (A $169 grill provided by the university "was not acceptable.")
"At a time when I feel a need to convince a lot of people in our state of the importance of higher education and the need to invest in it, $7,000 Persian rugs don't help one bit," the governor said.
Shumaker's need for more closet space led to a $97,350 sunroom and closet addition at the residence. Shumaker said he was having to "store his clothes in several closets throughout the house."
Sometimes the expenditures circumvented state review requirements by dividing the projects into smaller parts.
The audit said Shumaker displayed his largesse early. The moving company that brought Shumaker's belongings from the University of Louisville said he asked it to include a 20 percent gratuity to its nearly $14,000 bill, an allegation he later denied. The movers refused, saying they hoped to work for the university again.
Shumaker later hired the company to move items from his home in Arizona to Knoxville, and sent the $6,291 bill to UT. As in several other cases, the auditors said Shumaker should reimburse the university.
Shumaker paid back $34,747.51 in personal expenses before he resigned. The auditors concluded he actually paid too much and deserved a $2,861 refund.
More than $23,000 in personal expenses were travel related, much of it for trips in the UT plane, sometimes alone or on commercial airliners to Birmingham, where friend and former Louisville colleague Carol Garrison is president of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Shumaker, whose divorce from Lucy Shumaker was recently completed in Louisville, has described his relationship with Garrison as "unassailable, perfectly proper and appropriate . . . (and) nothing to apologize for."
Shumaker spent heavily on entertainment in support of the university. He told the auditors more than 2,700 people attended events in the president's residence during his tenure.
What a turd. Good riddance, a$$hole!
Why are you even commenting on this when you obviously have no clue about why his behavior was inappropriate.
And it's inappropriate regardless of how much or how little he may have raised for the school. That has never even been mentioned in whispers as a possible reason behind his firing.
He abused his position. Isn't that enough for you or do you think we should just let it slide?
I'm still trying to figger out how one could spend $30Large on a phone system for a house that size. I sell telephone systems for a living on my commercial website and 30 Large gets you enough of a communications package to service a company of 150 users. And that's US-made Avaya/Lucent product. Not some low-dollah Pacific-Rim import crud.
We've sold plenty of systems that wound up in high-end residences, and it's really hard to spend more than about $7000 even on the biggest of mansions.
Michael
Look, I understand the rationale, but it smacks of condoning corruption and graft. Some of us operate on a principle that says we shouldn't just shrug off abuse of a state office as long as the money's rolling in.
I'm just guessing, but I'll bet it was a no-bid contract with a company run by Shumaker's nephew/brother/best friend (take your pick). Tennessee seems to be very fond of outrageously expensive no-bid contracts.
Probably the job went to a major UT contributor. But they WAY overpaid. I could have sold them a top of the line AVAYA Partner ACS maxxed out with 16 lines on a T-1, 32 extension ports, a 34-button display speakerphone in every room and killer voicemail for less than half of that installed - and still made a killing. 30-Large is WAY over th' top.
Michael
Actually, college presidents are the last of the big-time spenders, and they can justify anything as an educational expense. $10,000 vase? Why, it's educational, going to the museum soon. My college just bought over a hundred acres with horses, cattle and llamas. Teaching small-ranch management, you know. Of course, the muckity-mucks have some horses stabled out there... and there are some nice places to ride ... and we did have to increase tuition rates this year...
If you are in sales and you misuse your company's money for your personal expenses, would you get to keep your job?
Shumaker was not going to be responsible for bringing in more money--the big money folks in Tennessee will give regardless of the president. However, those big money folks with integrity--Bill Stokely comes to mind--would have stopped giving if Shumaker had been allowed to stay.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.