The Sandhills Files: blowing smoke, covering up, trying to control damage

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You ought to try reading some of the approved minutes from the Sandhills Community College board of trustees meetings.  They’re just vague and cryptic enough to sound like pronouncements from any Third world dictatorship you can think of. (*”All hail our glorious leader as more and more great things continue to happen in our great kingdom.”*)

Good luck trying to read those and figure out what exactly the board is up to.  The county commissioners, the school board, and every city council in the county makes their member packets available online to the public. They bombard you with information. For some unknown reason, Sandhills Community College just refuses. 

Don’t get us started on the lie that regularly appears on the board of trustees agendas — that recordings of their meetings are not public record.  There has been a whole lot of case law suggesting otherwise.  Is the college willing to go to court over that — and waste some taxpayer money along the way? 

Speaking of reading like propaganda issued by a Third World dictator, our glorious local newspaper — Pravda-on-Pennsylvania — has proved time and again it will obfuscate and outright lie to protect advertisers and cocktail pals of Messrs. Woronoff & Nagy. 

If you’ve been following this story (by reading here and here), you’re aware that a state audit found $6.2 million in errors in its FY 24 audit of the school’s finances.  Our local paper went into defensive overdrive: Just some harmless typos.  No harm, no foul.  Move along.

Never mind that THIS was the actual language the auditor’s report used:

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s focus on the last sentence of the first excerpted paragraph above:

[“…] OSA has determined these errors occurred because there were no detailed year-end procedures planned, and a lack of knowledge and experience to perform the duties required for critical financial reporting decisions. […]

Ouch.  That sounds like a huge slap at the college’s administration / management team. Trustees, presidents, vice-presidents and the like. 

There aren’t many places in the private sector where you’d keep your job if you allowed people with “a lack of knowledge and experience”  to manage the flow of millions of dollars moving through your organization.  Yet, president Sandy Stewart got a three year contract extension and folks are actually working behind-the-scenes to get board of trustees chairman Larry Caddell reappointed to a new four year term.  

Both of those guys presided over the accounting catastrophe the state auditor revealed.  Overseeing and protecting the college’s finances are top-level components of the job descriptions for trustees and the college’s president. 

Just before end of the 2023-2024 fiscal year (which was the subject of the audit), this happened at the college’s board of trustees meeting:

Here’s college executive VP DJ Farmer more recently trying some damage control:

As of today, Karen Walker is still listed on the college’s website as Director of Financial Services.  So, it’s not clear exactly what composed all of this alleged extensive turnover college officials blamed the poor audit performance on. 

If you go back and review the auditor’s report, it seemed the books were in such a mess that one could really not tell what shape the college’s finances were truly in.

Apparently, the disclosure of the college’s financial management problems has created a couple more career opportunities:

Here’s a posting on the college’s website from July 2024 providing details on all the areas Farmer supervises.  It looks like quite a full plate for one guy. Could spreading people too thin be part of the problem over there on Airport Road?