Missouri Southern State University President Dr. Bruce Speck hemmed and hawed, and shuffled around like a teenager caught with a joint when board member Charles McGinty grilled him about the budget moments ago.
"What puts us in a deficit budget?"
McGinty noted that the cash balance is going up. This, of course, is taking place while Speck and Dwight Douglas have continued to moan and groan about the financial condition which has resulted in the elimination of programs, the threat of eliminating orders.
Dwight Douglas is now stepping in, since Speck was unable to handle McGinty's questioning. It's all depreciation. "You're going to need that cash down the road," Douglas said.
As usual, all other board members are sitting silently as the debate continues.
One thing not mentioned is that the act of describing Missouri Southern as a university with economic problems has offered an excuse for eliminating any program that does not quite fit in with Douglas' vision of what MSSU should be.
3 comments:
Bruce was flustered because he does not understand the role depreciation plays in an income statement. The dentist was trying to point out that if you substract the 4 million charge for depreciation from the 65+ total budgeted expenditures, there is actually a 3 million cash surplus! not a deficit!... That's why the cash balances are going up.THERE IS MONEY TO GIVE RAISES.
There is only an "accounting" deficit not a cash deficit. All the excuses given by Eis, Douglas and Bruce are lame, lame, lame..
"You are going to need that cash down the road", Douglas said.
Down the road? NOW is down the road,man.
We all know you are accumulating cash so you can build that storm shelter-football practice facility Nodler wants. Your going to build it on the backs of the people who work here.
Some defend the president on the basis that he is opposed to "deferred maintenance", i.e., to putting off routine maintenance of buildings and equipment in order to keep salaries competitive. The worst kind of deferred maintenance, it seems to me, is to defer the maintenance of your dedicated professional employees! To put off their still-modest annual adjustments until they are not simply the lowest paid faculty in MO's public colleges, but way below the next lowest! What will it cost to catch up then? Worse still, what will it cost to hire new faculty to replace those that have retired or left for greener pastures?
It's time for a change at the top!
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