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In December 2020, KSU’s former EVP for Finance, instead of tendering a true report, submitted a “scenario” report to the former President in response to a request by the former Board Chair for a report of outstanding accounts payable. The employee who created the report believed it was being used only by the former Controller and former EVP for Finance for internal consideration. The employee stated that the report was never intended to be a true reflection of KSU’s outstanding accounts payable. However, the former EVP for Finance submitted this report to the former President who in turn immediately submitted it to the former Board Chair. When submitting the report to the former President via email, the former EVP for Finance did not identify that this was a hypothetical report. By these actions, the former EVP for Finance misrepresented KSU’s true outstanding accounts payable balance for that period and denied management the information necessary to properly address a significant financial matter impacting the operations of the University.
According to KSU’s former President and former Board Chair, outstanding accounts payable information was requested in late 2020 due to rumors of KSU not paying vendors timely. The SVP for Brand Identity and University Relations specifically recalled a KSU employee contacting her around the fall of 2020 advising that a utility was going to publicly disclose that KSU had not paid the utility for a period of six months. In response, the SVP contacted the former President, who advised he was not aware of the matter, and then the SVP contacted the former EVP for Finance to determine why the bills had not been paid. The SVP states that she was advised by the former EVP for Finance that staff had not followed proper processes to get the bills paid.
After the former Board Chair discussed matters with the former Board Vice Chair, it was determined that a report of outstanding accounts payable from the fall of 2020 coupled with a report of what bills had been paid by the University was needed. This request was shared with the former President and the former EVP for Finance. However, the former Board Chair’s request was not known by the former KSU Purchasing Director who created the report. In fact, the former KSU
Former Board Chair requested a report of outstanding accounts payable from the fall of 2020 and a report of bills paid.
Purchasing Director did not believe a report of outstanding accounts payable was ever made to the full Board until after the prior administration left and CPE came to campus in 2021.
After the report was initially created by the former Purchasing Director, it was then submitted to the former EVP for Finance. This report was revised and submitted twice more to the former EVP for Finance before being passed along. The former Purchasing Director noted that the former EVP for Finance called and asked her to see what the report would look like if they paid the “screamers.” The “screamers” was a term used by KSU financial personnel to describe vendors who contacted the University for payment of delinquent bills. The former Purchasing Director noted she was working from home at the time of this request, receiving a series of phone calls from the former EVP for Finance, as it was over the holiday break.