National search for vice president of Finance and Administration underway Sept. 5

By Holly Dillemuth, Ashland.news

Corrections that had to be made to its budget don’t undermine the “SOU Forward” fiscal realignment plan adopted earlier this year, according to Southern Oregon University President Rick Bailey, who reviewed budgetary errors with the university board of trustees at a special meeting Monday. The changes amount to about 1% of the budget, he said.

“We’re very, very proud and pleased with (SOU Forward),” Bailey told Ashland.news on Tuesday. “But we still obviously have work to do in rebuilding, long-term, our fund balance, our resilience, and obviously improving processes.”

Bailey brought the board of trustees and campus community up to speed on necessary improvements to its financial and budgetary processes following a special meeting of the board on Monday, Aug. 28.

He said Tuesday that a national search for a vice president of Finance and Administration kicks off on Tuesday, Sept. 5, as the university picks up the pieces after more than $1 million in miscalculated funds were discovered in the university’s budget following the adoption of this year’s budget in June. Trustees discussed the miscalculated funds, as well as gains in enrollment and Oregon Legislative funds. 

Vice President of Finance and Administration Greg Perkinson left the university quietly on July 28. Perkinson told Ashland.news last week that it was a good time for him to “transition.” 

In an interview with Ashland.news on Tuesday, Bailey declined to comment on Perkinson’s performance related to the budget, but thanked him for his service to the university for the past five and a half years. Bailey described the errors made as “vulnerabilities” of the university’s own making related to the budgetary miscalculations that totaled more than $1.1 million.

Neglecting to account for cost-of-living adjustments and other increased expenses in payroll for union-represented employees amounted to an estimated $798,200 adjustment, as reported by Ashland.news. It was also reported by Ashland.news that costs associated with graduate assistants were also “unbudgeted” —  a $144,089 adjustment.

“We are taking this moment to focus on our fiscal management,” Bailey said. “I will say that the institution has processes with our finance and budget that need to be improved.”

Bailey anticipates the job description will be amended to reflect the needs of the university.

“That happens for every position,” he added. “We would do a disservice to the university if we didn’t take some time for what our needs are for the future moving forward within finance and administration.”

Bailey said one of the measures the university is using to safeguard against future inaccuracies is receiving insight from Jim Pinkard, of the Higher Education Coordinating Commission. Pinkard was invited to review the needed changes to the budget.

“We sat down with the books and looked through our processes,” Bailey said. “And really we got some validation on things we were doing well and then things that we can do better.”

“We need to stress the importance of accountability and that is that everyone who manages a budget or a portion of a budget at the institution, we need to create a culture of accountability 

for oversight of that budget and making sure that we all stay within our means,” Bailey said. “We should have more eyes on our process and more inputs into our decision-making and more people questioning in a healthy way the assumptions that we make. I would also say that there would be room in that conversation with our shared governance partners and the campus community.”                                  

Bailey declined to answer questions regarding exactly who was at fault in the budget miscalculations, citing human relations constraints and a focus on moving forward in accountability and transparency.

The miscalculations

“The overall effect to the budget … that the board approved in June, is about $700,000 –  That’s the overall change,” Bailey said. “That’s 1% of our budget and although that might seem potentially small, that 1% change in our budget is actually the result of several swings, both positive and negatively. That’s the focus area for us — We’ve got to make these processes more resilient and more manageable in a stable way, so that we can make operational and strategic decisions.”

The $1.1 million error contributed to an overall change in the budget of $700,000, according to Bailey, the result of what he describes as service and supply savings projected in the SOU Forward Plan that were “double counted.”

“That was a $1.1 million process error but … there were several different things that kind of came together, both positive and negative, that led to the $700,000 overall change,” he said.

Miscellaneous fees such as debt collection had not been “updated with latest projections,” leading to a $125,136 revenue increase, according to meeting materials, as reported by Ashland.news.

Bailey said it is ultimately his responsibility — and that of the board as fiduciary agents — to oversee a process “that puts the university students, faculty, staff and community in a healthy and manageable, fiscal place, and that is projected to remain healthy long-term.” 

“And so, the opportunities for improvement really existed in the fact that we had vulnerabilities that were of our own making that needed to be addressed,” he said. 

Bailey said there will always be variables out of our control as a public entity.

“We will always be beholden to our state legislature and what they provide in terms of support 

for public higher education institutions. We will never know for sure in advance what our exact 

enrollment will be,” he said. “We will continue to fight to improve that and to make sure that we’re supporting students as much as possible to help them get to the graduation stage, but those are variables that are unknown until census day. So there are some things that we need to make our best educated, projected guess.

“There are other things that are within our control, the assumptions that we make about budgets. The way in which we provide redundancies to minimize the likelihood of errors. Those are things that we can control and because we can control those, we need to control those.”

SOU is exploring a contractual relationship with an independent outside consulting firm for budget and finance consultant to help improve processes and create what Bailey describes as “redundancy” and “resiliency.”

“This is important enough that we will invest funding to make that happen,” Bailey said.

SOU Trustee Chair Daniel Santos, who attended the trustee meeting virtually, spoke with Ashland.news by phone on Tuesday. Santos said Bailey made him aware of the errors earlier 

this summer and that there would be necessary adjustments.

“Things were obviously going to be a cost to the overall budget,” Santos said. 

Santos said he and board members wanted to know, “How much?”

He asked Bailey to convene the board of trustees for a special meeting well before their 

planned meeting in October.

“We needed to update the board,” Santos said.

Santos sees the situation holistically, especially since the Oregon Legislature awarded SOU 

$1,375,952 more than anticipated, as previously reported by Ashland.news.

“Yes, these … errors are costly, but given the … conservative budgeting and the greater revenues from the Legislature, it wasn’t as damaging as it could’ve been,” Santos said.

For Santos, the goal now is to ensure that fiscal operations at the university are sound moving forward.

“I’m not naive that sometimes mistakes will be made,” he said.

Bailey also discussed the SOU Forward plan, which he says has been accelerated by about six months.

“What my organizational changes over the summer did was to take student affairs, which was slated to move under the provost in January of ‘24 and accelerated the timeline to make that happen this summer,” he said. “We were already planning to do that anyways but by moving that change earlier, it freed up our executive vice president, (Neil) Woolf, to in an interim capacity, (to assume the role of vice president of Finance & Administration).”

Enrollment up

Bailey expressed cautious optimism over ongoing gains in enrollment for fall term, though the university won’t know numbers for certain until mid to late October.

“We’re not popping corks on champagne yet, but I will say that early indications are really promising and I think it is a testament to the great work from our admissions and recruiting team, and our Student Affairs team,” Bailey said. “Really, really strong fall enrollment numbers will obviously help our budget outlook as well. 

“We still have more that we’re going to admit so this is a moving target,” Bailey added. 

SOU experienced gains in enrollment revenue compared to April estimates, with a $613,638 revenue increase from tuition and fees, as previously reported by Ashland.news.

As of four weeks prior to the start of the term, Bailey said the head count is up 115 students from last year at this same time. 

“We’re not celebrating until the term is underway, but so far, it’s very promising,” he said.

EDI vice president resigns, provost to retire

In other SOU leadership news, Toya Cooper, vice president for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion resigned this summer, citing a need to spend more time with her family.

“She will continue to guide our EDI team and be in our university on our EDI process while the rest of the university has a conversation about how we structure the EDI work moving forward,” Cooper said.

Jonathan Chavez will now transition into a role as interim assistant vice president for EDI, and will report directly to Bailey.

SOU Provost and Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs Sue Walsh will also be retiring at the end of this year, prompting a search currently underway to fill her role. Walsh taught communication at SOU for 25 years.

“We look forward to interviewing candidates in the fall,” Bailey said.

Reach Ashland.news staff reporter Holly Dillemuth at hollyd@ashland.news.