Wright State trustees implementing new financial ‘guardrails’

Wright State University’s board of trustees is rewriting the school’s financial reporting policy to require more details to be provided to the board on a regular basis.

The new policy the board will follow sets up financial “guardrails” or indicators that measure finances to quickly alert trustees if a downturn is looming. The details, such as calculations of revenues versus expenses and reserve fund level, among others, were not regularly reported to the board, said Doug Fecher, chairman of the board’s finance committee.

Wright State is in the midst of a financial crisis and must cut $25 million from its next budget for the school to regain its financial footing.

The last time the board updated its finance policy was in 2003. Fecher suggested that the 2003 policy was just “shelfware.”

He said that the new policy will serve a clear purpose and will be reviewed annually by trustees.

“We need an effective policy and one that works,” Fecher said. “Last updated in 2003, it was in many folks estimation not strong enough for the university we run today.”

WSU’s finance committee deliberated the new policy after a public session Friday morning in which the full board heard from staff and students who expressed concern and disdain about how the university’s budget issues came to be.

One staff member complained about how administrators and trustees said they would try to limit the number of faculty that are laid off as opposed to staff. Laying off staff seems to be the “soft place to land” in times of crisis, said Jerry Hensley, president of the unclassified staff advisory council.

The university may lay off between 80 and 120 employees next month, officials have said.

“We are angry at the negligence and the lack of accountability that has brought us here,” Hensley said.

Wright State has spent more money than it brought in since 2012, the Dayton Daily News reported last month. The university is projected to have overspent by more than $120 million over the last six years.

Separately, the board of trustees voted to elect Fecher to be the next chairman of the board and Anuj Goyal was named the next vice chairman of the board. Fecher is the president and CEO of Wright-Patt Credit Union and Goyal has a medical practice that includes pulmonary disease, critical care and sleep medicine.

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