SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento State University oversees Capital Public Radio, and the university now admits it failed to provide financial oversight after a scathing review of the station.
Sacramento State President Dr. Luke Wood made it clear they underestimated the scale of the problem.
"When I first heard about CapRadio was right after I was selected as president of Sac State. And they said we want to brief you on what's going on with this auxiliary. It seems to be having some issues, and I was told, 'Don't worry. It's going to be fixed before you get here.' And I think that's where people thought the problem was and as we kept turning over each leaf we would find more and more," Wood said.
A months-long independent forensic exam found a spouse of one of the former board members held an ownership interest in the property under consideration for the new downtown headquarters. The review also found more than $460,000 in payments were disbursed to a former CapRadio leader referred to only as Subject #1, without evidence of expense reports or receipts.
Capitol Public Radio paid an additional $300,000 for purchases that may have been made by Subject #1 but supporting documents weren't available.
"How this occurred really is this: The campus has always tried to allow there to be a journalist firewall between the campus and Capital Public Radio. Why? Because that's important for journalist independence, and then we find ourselves in the position where the trust that was provided was violated," Wood said.
The university released a statement saying the following:
"There is no evidence at this time that Sac State was involved in fiscal mismanagement or conflicts of interest. However, the university was responsible for financial oversight and that is where we failed. And that is where we took action. We have parted ways with individuals who did not provide the oversight that would be normally expected.
However, the changes don't end there.
"Before, the auxiliaries did not meet together with the finance team on a regular basis to determine what are they doing? Are they doing it right? Are they following our policies and protocols? And so one of the things I did when I came into this role is we created a council. So now, they're doing that on a regular basis with all of our auxiliaries, because we don't want to have something like this occur again," Wood said.
Wood said they've shared an unredacted copy of the review with law enforcement and that an investigation is underway.
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