CSUN University News Clippings

CSU fund management questioned

(July 10, 2009)

By Sarah Rohrs

Concerned that California State University foundations may be mismanaged, a state faculty union has urged Attorney General Jerry Brown to launch an investigation.

“The 23,000 members of the California Faculty Association have serious concerns about whether or not the CSU’s various foundations are conforming to proper fiduciary responsibility under state and federal law,” union president Lillian Taiz wrote in a letter this week to Brown.

Taiz’s letter alleges that “donations that were made to improve the quality of education for California’s students (have gone) toward kitchen remodels and personal loans.”

CSU Chancellor’s Office spokeswoman Claudia Keith said the CSU follows the law. She added that anyone can request investigations and make allegations. “We’ll leave it up to the attorney general to respond.”

Brown’s spokesman, Evan Westrup, said he couldn’t comment on the letter. “We can’t comment on the existence or status of an investigation,” he said.

California Maritime Academy, a CSU campus in Vallejo, has a foundation with a $1.8 million endowment. School spokesman Doug Webster said there are no improprieties with the foundation, which raises money for scholarships, programs and construction projects.

Webster added that the Cal-Maritime foundation’s bylaws prohibit loans.

CFA vice president Andy Merrifield, a Sonoma State University political science professor, said CSU’s foundations and their auxiliaries lack transparency.

Some 87 foundations and related auxiliary organizations are connected with 23 CSU campuses and the Chancellor’s Office, according to the CFA.

The faculty union requested the investigation, Merrifield said, after the Santa Rosa Press Democrat ran a story about a loan the Sonoma State University Academic Foundation made to a former board member.

The loan was one of more than two dozen made by the foundation, and the board member’s mortgage company arranged for more than two-thirds of them, according to the July 1 story.

Merrifield and Taiz said money raised through CSU foundations and their auxiliaries should go to programs and services that benefit students, particularly as tuition fees increase and classes are canceled during the ongoing state budget crisis.

Publication: Times-Herald