Our
Money Is Gone
Richard Allan
Opinion Columnist
Congratulations, Gary Lewis, on becoming Shasta CollegeÕs new president,
now will you please keep your Johnson out of our pockets.
Last semester it was reported that the financial wizard Ron ŌHey watch me
make your money disappearĶ Johnson, Dean of Fine Arts and Communications, had
misspent and depleted the LanceÕs auxiliary account. The Lance calculated the
amount to be at $5, 681.53.
We were anticipating at least some of that money, if not all of it, to be
replaced into our account. Instead we got nothing and are starting the year
with our balance at zero.
Now I donÕt know for sure
whatÕs really going on, but I donÕt have to see cows to realize IÕm standing in
the middle of a cow pasture.
Johnson blames the problem on the
LanceÕs editors.
He said itÕs because our
student leadership last year was ineffective in generating sales revenue and
that we need a business manager.
Although itÕs true our
student leadership last year did screw the pooch in a big way. His argument is
no more valid then for us to say, had we earned more money, we would just be
missing more money.
He also said the Lance went over its printing budget. We say he screwed
us over.
The problem started when
Johnson fouled up our printing budget in 2004. What he did was, he paid some
2004 printing bills out of our 2005 budget and it snowballed from there.
Now weÕre being punished for his mistakes.
Johnson raided our auxiliary account to pay $526.70 for round-trip
airline tickets for a guest musician to perform here at the college. He also
spent $444.30 for instructional materials for a mass communications class and
$50 for a magazine subscription. That money was blatantly misspent and should be put back into our account.
Johnson now says that money was replaced into our account. It was not,
however, replaced by the end of last semester. So my guess is the financial
wizard is doing some more of his creative financing.
Money was put into our account last semester to ensure we could finish
out the year and pay certain editors. So any money put into the account after that should still be
there.
Now lets go with JohnsonÕs argument that we overspent our budget. That
makes him even more culpable. He has complete control over our finances, we
have none.
The Lance was operating with the notion our printing budget was $8,000 a
year. We did not invent that number, we got it from his office.
If our budget had changed, Johnson
should have notified us. He did not.
He was the only one at the time who knew our 2005 budget was pinched
before we even started. Again, he said nothing.
Our dean then watched our account dwindle by the thousands and again said
nothing until it was totally depleted.
Lewis, acting president at the time, said he would not investigate the
situation without a formal complaint. That was six weeks after he was first
notified of the problem. So the Lance filed one.
We wanted to file a grievance. But as it turns out, there is no policy in
place to protect our account from misspending, therefore, no grievance.
The Lance also filed a formal complaint against Lewis, saying it was a
dereliction of duty for our senior
administrator not to investigate a
matter of fiscal misspending without a formal complaint.
The complaint against Lewis was withdrawn after he assured us he was
investigating the issue. However, at that time he still did not know if some of
the misspending was JohnsonÕs error or the Business Office. It was definitely
not the Business Office.
Lewis took over as acting president in February after Mary RettererÕs
suspicious departure. Lewis, who openly wanted the position and said he had no
idea how the Board of Trustees was going to vote, was selected as our president
in June, which is a good thing or his trip in early May to introduce himself at
the Record Searchlight would have just been weird.
Lewis was JohnsonÕs direct supervisor at the times in question and should
be responsible for making the situation right.
We deserve the money our
dean deliberately misspent and half the printing cost. That would leave us with
$3,351 in our account. So Mr. President please do the right thing. If not,
youÕre just a Johnson.