The actions taken by Dean of the College of Agriculture Catherine Woteki regarding concerns in the handling of some of the college’s endowment accounts have been a good first step, said local officials. However, some would like to see more openness throughout the university.

“[Concerns over endowment accounts in the College of Agriculture] illustrate the importance of open records,” said Neil Harl, distinguished professor of agricultural economics. “In terms of benefits, the greatest impact will be on those responsible for administering the accounts, whose decisions are influenced by whether or not the information is made public.”

Woteki outlined the endowment concerns in an open letter to alumni that pinpointed several farms given to the college and the use of funding from those farms.

Woteki found that money from the Jessie Coles farm, which was to be used at the dean’s discretion for scholarships and research, was instead being used for purposes ranging from international travel to faculty, student and staff support. One percent had been spent on research and 22 percent had been spent on scholarships.

Woteki plans to pay back more than $205,000 over a three-year period from funds without such restrictions. Woteki decided the college should repay the funds after she chose to use a more narrow interpretation of the use of the funds than previous administrations.

Another concern Woteki identified in her letter was the placement of five checks totaling $7,400 in the form of preferred customer rebates for the Research and Demonstration Farms from chemical and seed companies into an ISU Foundation account, instead of a revolving account for use in operation of the farm.

Approximately $4,599 of the money was spent over a five-year period on meals associated with meetings, retirement gifts and receptions for employees, and T-shirts and hats to identify employees. The money has been transferred into the correct accounts and the spent money was repaid.

Wendy Wintersteen, senior associate dean for the College of Agriculture, said all the money spent while the funds were in the Foundation account was spent on issues related to the farm.

Open records request

Mark Gannon, former land manager with the ISU Agricultural Foundation, and the Experiment Station from 1994 to 2000, filed an open records request May 24 for financial data, correspondence and other records pertaining to the farm gifts of Coles, Roscoe Marsden, Edith Lagerstrom, the Research and Demonstration Farms and several others.

He received an e-mail response from Woteki Tuesday telling him they would not be able to get the records to him until Monday.

Woteki said the reasons for the delay were due to the volumes of information and schedules.

“It took time to pull it all together and make copies,” Woteki said.

“I found it kind of funny that they had time to send out 30,000 letters and put it all together in a report before they could send [the information] to me,” Gannon said.

Bill Kunerth, professor emeritus of journalism, said Gannon helped uncover a lot of information that might not have otherwise been revealed.

“The university and the Ag Foundation should be thanking Mark Gannon for pursuing these issues of questionable handling of the money from the farms, not downplaying his role,” Kunerth said. “I have serious doubts as to whether the college would have went public with the information if Mr. Gannon hadn’t requested information on these issues.”

Woteki said the open records request had no bearing on her decision to write the open letter, which was sent out to more than 30,000 alumni and friends of the College of Agriculture.

Gannon said he requested the records because he thought there were some issues not being handled right. Gannon was also the whistle-blower on the situation with the Marie Powers farm. The concerns from the Marie Powers farm stem from the controversial sale of the farm against the donor’s wishes – the proceeds of which were used to setup several scholarships for students in the agronomy department.

A call for open records

“This episode [regarding the handling of agriculture endowment accounts] is further evidence of the need to open records,” Kunerth said. “Otherwise [the Foundation and university] risk individual scandals continuing to pop up such as the Marie Powers’ fiasco.”

Harl said it is important for all account information, other than the names of the donors to be made public.

“If administrators know the public can look at the records, it may affect their decisions,” said Harl, a member of Friends of Iowa State University – a group formed to encourage the ISU Foundation to open its expenditure records.

“The disinfectant value of sunshine is that for the people involved with the accounts, there will be a greater tendency to make decisions they wouldn’t otherwise make if someone could review what they have done.”

Barbara Boose, communications manager for the ISU Foundation, said the Foundation does make a good deal of information available to the public.

“Legally, the foundation is required to disclose its tax return and then voluntarily we make other documents available,” Boose said.

Boose said the Foundation voluntarily makes available their audited annual financial report, their annual report, the endowment policies and the amount of money transferred to Iowa State for academic purposes. She said after the funds are transferred to the university, how the university uses the gift after it is transferred is available as well.

Information about the specific donors is something that is not open, though, Boose said.

“Some donors want to remain anonymous, and they should have that right,” she said.

Boose said she doesn’t want to downplay the Powers incident, but pointed out the Foundation has thousands of donors that are pleased with the way their gifts are being handled.

Only the beginning

David Hopper, chairman of the Committee to Review Endowment Expenditures, said Woteki has taken “a wonderful first step to address some of the issues raised.”

“Dean Woteki has instituted a number of the recommendations the committee made,” Hopper said.

The committee, appointed by President Gregory Geoffroy, reviewed 66 endowment accounts across the university focusing mainly on accounts with large unspent or deficit balances.

Fourteen recommendations were made to improve oversight of the accounts.

“Our assessment was there are hundreds of people around the university that deal with the 1,500-plus accounts,” Hopper said. “What we found were that people had very good intent and did everything they felt they should be doing. Our overarching finding was there needs to be better training. The university has a five to 10 percent changeover rate every year. Does the baton get passed effectively? Everyone is trying to do a good job, but when the recommendations get implemented we will see significant improvement in our ability to handle the accounts.”

Hopper said even though the committee only looked at 66 accounts, he would not be surprised if some of the same issues were found as full university-wide reviews go forward.

Greg Lamka, chairperson of the Ag Alumni Board of Directors, said he felt Woteki did the right thing and thinks the accounts will be handled better than in the past.

“In the past it was done on more of an ad hoc basis than a systematic basis,” said Lamka, a graduate of Iowa State. “[The College of Agriculture] has really made an attempt to systematize the handling of the accounts.”

Lamka said even though the steps taken are good ones, it is important to continually review the accounts.

He said he wasn’t aware of any alumni that were especially alarmed, but said it has been a topic of discussion because people want to fully understand what’s going on.

Lamka said open records will increase the university’s ability to regain any loss of donor or alumni confidence as a result of the concern over the handling of the endowment accounts.

“Having an open policy lays the groundwork, and from there it will take time and one-on-one discussions,” Lamka said