ND State Board of Higher Education Shuts the Door After the Horses Have Run Off

Private foundations will be paying almost all the costs of the presidents’ homes at North Dakota State University and at UND.
The State Board of Higher Education agreed Friday to send a request to the Legislature’s budget section to accept the additional funds.

Let’s get this straight. The State Board of Higher Education is sleeping while both of the large universities overspent on their Presidents’ Palaces. NDSU willfully exceeded the total while it appears that UND bent the rules. The state legislature established a limit of about a million dollars for both houses. UND considered landscaping as not part of the overall expenses as some past buildings had done. I guess that’s fine as far as it goes, but they spent $260,000 on landscaping. Clearly that’s gross overspending, but not necessarily illegal.
On the other hand the NDSU group chose a design they knew could never be built for that amount. They then added to it and ordered it built quickly so the President no longer had to live in his hovel. They also overspent on landscaping.
Now the State Board, who’s proven to be entirely incompetent, has decided that the taxpayers won’t pay for it, but the Foundations that have money donated to benefit the school are supposed to pay for it. There’s two problems with that.
The first is that it’s still state money.
The second is that it’s still illegal. The state legislature established a limit. Anyway you go around it, whether you have a donor paying for it or not, is illegal. The NDSU guys did it on purpose.
In other news Sandy Blunt is appealing his conviction.

BISMARCK — North Dakota’s Supreme Court is reviewing the appeal of a former state workers compensation director who was convicted of misspending more than $26,000 in agency funds

Blunt’s “crime” that he was convicted for was using agency money for employee morale programs. The ND Workers Comp agency is a pretty independent entity, much more so than the Higher Education system.
If Sandy Blunt committed a felony, then the NDSU guys committed an hat full. This was a criminal matter that must be turned over to whatever prosecutor has authority over this matter.