The Sandhills Files: incompetence, cronyism, and disrespect for the law

Yes, those are the three winners in recent developments over on the Airport Road campus.  The college just got hit by an embarrassing report from the state auditor.  And how has college leadership responded?  By blaming all the problems on now-retired John Dempsey. Giving current president Sandy Stewart a three-year contract extension. And a lot of string-pulling to get Board of Trustees chairman Larry Caddell reappointed to a new four year term.

Caddell and Stewart are the two top dogs at Sandhills. The buck is supposed to stop with them.  But, apparently, it stops with John Dempsey – who is no longer around to defend himself. 

Incompetence.  

That’s not just my conclusion.  That appears to be the conclusion of state auditor Dave Boliek and his team.  Let’s refer back to the report they issued on Sandhills Community College:

[…] In our financial statement audit of Sandhills Community College, the North Carolina Office of State Auditor (OSA) has identified $6.2 million in financial reporting errors for the year ended June 30, 2024. 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.

As our report lays out on page 55, financial reporting errors include but are not limited to overstating accounts receivable and beginning net position by $945,130, understating construction in progress by $763,460, and overstating accounts receivable and tuition revenues by $289,171. Such errors increase the risk of making financial decisions based on unreliable data, which can negatively impact the student experience. […]

*Unreliable data.*   Stewart and Caddell defenders love to tell us: “No money was missing, thank the lord.”

How do you know?  The books were apparently – according to the state auditor – so screwed up that you couldn’t say with any confidence what the college’s financial standing is or was.  THAT is what “unreliable data” means to most people.

I’ve had more than one Stewart-Caddell apologist try to explain all away this way:  *Sandy was too nice and deferential to Dempsey.  He kept all of Dempsey’s people in place, and the decision came back to bite him in the behind.*

Cronyism.  

Caddell was initially appointed to the Sandhills Community College board by the Moore County commissioners.  This year, at the expiration of Caddell’s term, the commissioners went in another direction and chose someone else.

In Raleigh, our legislators have been fighting with the governor over appointment powers.  The local board of education, the governor, and the county commissioners used to have the say on trustee appointments.  Now, that has been reworked to the state House, the state Senate, and the county commissioners having full control of appointments.

In the real world, someone who presided over a multi-million dollar screwup of an organization’s books would not be in the world of the employed much longer.  In the community college world, you get a contract extension and reappointment to a new term. 

I turned to the Stewart-Caddell cheerleading team for some clarification and, hopefully, explanation: *We’re building a new alternative high school. We also need a whole lot more money to make it happen.  Larry is really good at raising money.  That is his value to the school.*

That sounds like a good reason to hire someone onto your political campaign.  Not to oversee the operations of an institution of higher learning.

Sandhills Community College has had great success in raising money from the community.  They have a foundation, separate from the trustees, which handles that job.  The college is blessed to be located in a community highly-populated with wealthy retirees who have a lot of disposable income laying around. I can’t imagine that it would be all that hard to raise money for that school in this county. 

Disrespect for the Law.

We have two subcategories within this category:  DEI and transparency.

DEI. Talk to an administrator at Sandhills or a long-time board member.  They will look you in the eye and tell you DEI is gone from the college.  (The state legislature AND the Trump administration have made it clear that DEI is no longer welcome on school campuses.)

We’ve written extensively about DEI on the Sandhills campus.  It appears they’ve done little more than change the name from DEI to something else — Engagement and / or *Community Engagement.*

*Engagement* is commonly used as a synonym for – or interchangeably with – DEI.  The edu-crats are hoping to fool us — that we’ll buy the new nomenclature and just move on to something else.  With the say-little, do-little, sycophant board at Sandhills, that should be a pretty easy feat.

The lady who was originally hired as Dean of DEI is now Dean of Engagement.  Her departmental offerings, and the cast of characters around her, all appear to be the same as they ever were.

Transparency.  There are all kinds of laws on the books about openness in public, governmental meetings. Most all of our local municipal and county entities comply.  For some reason, Sandhills adamantly refuses.

The county commissioners and most city or town boards offer the same packet board members get for download via the Internet.  If you want, you can see exactly what board members participating in the meeting see.  For some reason, Sandhills refuses to do this.

There are missing agendas and meeting minutes going back months and years.

Current agendas all include language about how audio recordings of the board meetings are not “public record.”  That, simply, is a lie.  (You may have a case if you’re talking about personnel or property purchase discussions conducted in closed session.)

The agenda language goes on to state the recordings will be kept for a year and then destroyed. Again, problematic.

Pinehurst, the county, and the school board ALL livestream their meetings over the Internet.  Why can’t the college do that with their board meetings?  Scheduling meetings in the morning and right at 5PM makes it harder for working people to show up in person and participate. (Of course, that may be the idea.)

At a recent board meeting, Caddell berated a citizen for daring to quietly record the proceedings with his iPhone from the audience.  Again, it’s a public meeting.  Usually, there is an attorney presiding over these meetings.  Why doesn’t he or she advise the board about stuff like this?  Could the board – or its chairman – be simply ignoring the attorney?

Central Piedmont Community College is dealing with a federal lawsuit over alleged violations of Open Meetings Law requirements.  We know that Sandhills is already embroiled in at least ONE messy lawsuit. Continuing to thumb your collective noses at Open Meetings laws is just asking for something similar to CPCC’s predicament to find its way to Airport Road in Pinehurst.

It took some real behind-closed-doors arm-twisting to get Larry Caddell reappointed.  The folks who initially appointed him didn’t want to see him on that board for four more years.

It’s obvious that the good ol’ boy network wants Larry Caddell around for at least four more years.  He’s a familiar face and they know what they’re going to get.  Though, you have to ask:  Is what we know we’re going to get really good for the college and Moore County?