The Florida Times-Union
Thursday, February 5, 2004

JU begins scrutiny of all aspects of its operations
The school's accrediting agency has prodded it to shore up its finances.

By Beth Kormanik
The Times-Union

"Everything is on the table" as Jacksonville University begins a campus wide review of its finances, academics and operations to make sure the private school is healthy before the end of the fiscal year in June, President David Harlow said this week. 

The university will get help from a Maryland-based firm that describes itself as specializing in "financially troubled, under-performing and entrepreneurial companies."

A committee member of faculty and administrators named Tuesday will work with the consultant to review all aspects of the university in a few weeks to a month, Harlow said.  Members will make recommendations to JU's Board of Trustees.

Board Chairman Michael Cascone Jr. said the board is responding to Harlow's impending retirement by June 2005 and the fact that JU has an interim chief financial officer.  CFO Joseph Wiley resigned in October following a "no-confidence" vote by faculty partly due to the school's $2,3 million deficit last year.

JU's total budget was $49 million in 2002, according to the most recent tax records.

"The board wanted to make sure decisions made are long-term decisions and not short-term decisions," Cascone said.

The school's accrediting agency also prodded it to shore up its finances.  The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools reaffirmed JU's 10-year accreditation in December, but it requested a follow-up report about the university's finances, among other factors.

JU will have to demonstrate it has enough money to support its programs and submit financial audit reports for the past two fiscal years and the most recent financial aid audit.  A report is due in September.

The university's budget is balanced at the moment, Harlow said, but he declined to give projections about where the university would be at the end of the fiscal year in June.  He said interim CFO William Crosby was poring through the university's records and the school didn't have the information it needed to give specifics about the financial situation.

He also said he didn't know whether next year's budget would shrink or grow.  That's tied to how many tuition paying students enroll next year.  But Harlow was optimistic.

"With the way we're putting together the effort….we are going to resolve it, go forward and be balanced in the next year," he said.

The committee will examine all aspects of the university, he said.  When asked if faculty could lose jobs, he answered, "We don't know."

"Tenured faculty are pretty safe," Harlow said, but he couldn't say the same about adjuncts or tenure-tract faculty.  The accrediting agency pressured JU to trim part-time faculty to no more than 25 percent of the staff.

JU's bank, Wachovia, suggested the school hire consultant Jim Huitt of the McShane Group to work with the school.  His first visit to JU was last week.  Huitt belongs to the Association of Certified Turnaround Professionals, the Turnaround Management Association and is a past president of the Business Workout Council.

"They are recognized as experts in reviewing challenges universities have and coming up with solid solutions," said Paul McCormick of the McCormick Agency, a Jacksonville public relations firm the university hired.

McCormick said Huitt will review "long and short-term financial challenges," and make recommendations about the school's budget.

The decisions might lead to tough decisions, said Cascone, the board chairman.

"Every department, every program is going to be asking for more resources," he said.  "We'll be deciding who gets more, who gets less and what are the priorities for deciding that."

 

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