University of Arizona leadership says its financial crisis should be viewed as a university-wide problem and that it will take everyone working together to get through it. But there is still plenty of pushback against the people in charge.
Professor and faculty senate member Ted Downing says “there is responsibility all the way down to the bottom,” but there also needs to be more accountability and transparency at the top.
“We’re out of budget, we’re running all over the place,” he said Monday after leadership’s forum regarding the university’s response to the crisis. “That discipline was supposed to be instilled by who? The president and by the Board of Regents. Ultimately, all is accountable to him.”
Downing says leadership’s budget model and “off budget wheeling and dealings” led to this crisis.
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ABOR chair Fred DuVal said Monday that two outside firms will “triple-check” the university’s financial planning from here.
“The governor said she’d like an independent audit. An independent audit. They’re giving us an internal audit,” Downing said of the university’s plan. “You can’t go to the same people who caused the problem and ask them to find a solution… Makes me feel that we haven’t really reached the bottom of this pit.”