By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A St. Joseph couple has requested to take a comprehensive look at financial documents from Missouri Western State University in wake of the Board of Governors approval of $6 million dollars in budget cuts.
Marty and Jo Anne Grey have made a U.S. Freedom of Information request along with a Missouri Sunshine Law request for financial documents dating back to 2017.
Missouri Western President Matt Wilson says it will take time and effort to unearth all the records requested.
“But, because we’re open and transparent, you can ask me about anything and you’ll get an answer from me, we did spend a lot of time and provided a lot of documents that weren’t even part of those requests as well,” Wilson tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline.
Wilson says Missouri Western has delivered 600 pages of documents to the Greys so far.
The Greys have requested audit reports, budgets, MWSU Foundation documents, and an analysis of financial changes made last year which created a nearly $3 million annual deficit.
Wilson says that will take time and effort to retrieve.
“To the extent that the other documents, the Greys want to see that, we have asked for advance payment, which is proper under the Sunshine Act request,” Wilson says. “So, as soon as we get that, at that point in time we’ll stop what we’re doing, we’ll assign an employee to go and dig and pull the rest of those record requests that date all the way back to 2017.”
Missouri Western will bill the Greys $6,000 for the work to get the financial records requested.
The MWSU Board of Governors gave unanimous approval to a proposal from Wilson to cut $6 million dollars from the university’s annual budget to shore up a budget shortfall and eliminate the least popular majors on campus.
Majors will be dropped affecting 322 students and 61 faculty positions will be eliminated; 20 tenured and 31 non-tenured.
The cuts will be phased-in over a three-year period.
They are intended to close an annual budget gap of $2-to-3 million in Missouri Western’s $56 million annual budget by eliminating majors which graduate 10 or fewer students each year.