Morgan State University officials assured lawmakers that the school had made significant progress in correcting most of the major problems auditors found with its management of construction projects.
But because the state Attorney General’s Office has not completed its investigation of overpayments and unauthorized spending, the university still cannot produce the report legislators demand before they release $3.8 million in construction money for Baltimore City’s historically black university.
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The co-chairmen of the General Assembly’s Joint Audit Committee said they would write to Attorney General Doug Gansler, asking him to finish the probe quickly, said Del. Steve DeBoy, D-Baltimore County, the House co-chairman. “I’m glad to see that there is progress being made,” DeBoy said.
Morgan President Earl Richardson told the committee that “it had been a very difficult and trying time over the last eight months.” Auditors found serious deficiencies in a February audit that led to the restrictions on university spending.
Since then, the university fired the director of construction management and just recently hired a new chief for design and construction, Richardson said. The school also hired a management consultant to evaluate and revise the university’s construction procedures, one of the key requirements lawmakers put in the state’s capital budget language. The consultant’s report is now being evaluated.
Auditors had also found that the university did not seek competitive bids for $3.1 million in unspecified building by Whiting Turner Contracting Co., and it also overpaid $825,000 to the company, which is still doing work at the university.
But Richardson said it is no longer clear that the university actually overpaid Whiting Turner. “All of the work was indeed completed” at a cost close to what had been estimated, Richardson said.
“It does not appear that taxpayers were harmed by that transaction,” Richardson said.
University attorney Julie Goodwin could not respond in detail to questions about any lawsuits against contractors to recover damages for failing to meet completion deadlines. Auditors criticized the university for not seeking the damages.
“I think you’ve made great strides,” said Del. Charles Barkley, D-Montgomery, but he wanted to see the final report, with the attorney general’s findings.
Sen. Joan Carter Conway, D, chairman of the Senate’s education committee, was still unhappy with how the university in her district was being treated. “The university should never have been in hot water,” Conway said. In the upcoming legislative session, “I don’t expect that Morgan will be treated well.”
