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Tennessee State expects litigation over severing consulting contract with former president • Tennessee Lookout [1]

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Date: 2024-12-17

Tennessee State University officials said Monday they recently broke ties with the school’s former president, Glenda Glover, but predicted she will file suit after the Board of Trustees canceled a consulting contract totaling $1.7 million.

The state injected $43 million into TSU’s budget this fall so the university could make payroll. Yet the university remains in flux after new interim president Dwayne Tucker stepped into the role when his predecessor, Ronald Johnson, resigned last week amid questions about Glover’s consulting fee.

In a meeting Monday with the State Building Commission that marked his first day on the job, Tucker hesitated to agree to seek adoption of an “exigency” plan, an emergency measure designed to resolve the university’s financial problems. He said he hopes to persuade business executives he is familiar with to dig into TSU’s finances and bring a three-year revival plan to the commission in February.

Answering questions from State Comptroller Jason Mumpower, a commission member, Tucker, who moved from the TSU Board of Trustees to the presidency, confirmed that Glover no longer has a parking pass, Tennessee Titans tickets or a contract with the university.

Charles Traughber, vice chairman of the TSU Board of Trustees, said the board’s decision to end the contract was a “source of potential litigation” and referred commission members to the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office.

Tucker, who is taking leave from overseeing LEAD Public Schools, said afterward Johnson resigned because the board questioned him about the Glover contract he inked without board authorization. Originally, the consulting fee was $850,000, and another agreement would have bumped it to $1.7 million, according to Tucker, who spoke to the Tennessee Lookout afterward.

“Originally, it started off as $850,000, and then the last agreement that was signed between her and the university was another $850,000,” said Tucker, a TSU alum who is not taking a university salary. He added that the Board of Trustees felt the agreements were approved beyond out of its purview.

Johnson said last week his decision to leave was not made lightly, according to news reports, and he noted that it “has become apparent there is a fundamental difference of perspective with the board.”

Yet Traughber said Johnson misled the Building Commission about his involvement in Glover’s consulting contract, according to news reports. Under pressure from Republican lawmakers, she resigned at the end of June.

Traughber also said the former interim president told him that TSU graduates and students who didn’t earn degrees were “destined to work at Popeyes or Starbucks,” comments that caused consternation across the TSU community, according to an Axios article.

Mumpower, who has criticized the university’s finances for two years and called for removal of Glover and the board of trustees, told Tucker and Traughber they made the right move in dismissing their legal counsel and chief financial officer and canceling the contract with Glover, who, he said, “made out like a bandit, leaving only a legacy of dysfunction.”

He raised questions, though, about whether TSU could continue to make its budget into 2025.

“This is a question of whether Tennessee State University will continue to be open,” Mumpower said.

TSU ran into problems in fall 2022 when it conducted an aggressive scholarship program, using $37 million from a federal grant to fund students as enrollment jumped to more than 8,000. The university’s financial shortfall stems, in part, from increases in daily operating expenses as tuition and fee revenue declined.

TSU failed to sustain the scholarship program, and enrollment dipped to about 6,300 this fall as only 1,000 freshmen opted to attend, putting the university in an even more precarious position.

The former interim president told state officials last month that 114 people were laid off and expenses were cut, saving some $24 million. Yet the university needed a financial boost from the state to continue operations, and another one might be necessary in April or May if TSU can’t meet its $18 million payroll.

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally told Tucker the university could adopt an “exigency” plan and continue with a full review of expenses. Mumpower also directed Tucker to look at every faculty and staff position on campus and low-performing academic programs, in addition to selling TSU’s Avon Williams campus in downtown Nashville and a piece of property at John C. Tune Airport that’s used for storage but could be sold for $9 million.

State leaders allowed TSU to use $32 million for a campus building project and made an $11 million advance to the university to help it stay alive this fall.

TSU has struggled financially for decades. A federal report last year found the university had been underfunded by $2.1 billion over 30 years, and a previous state study determined the university, one of two land grant institutions in Tennessee, was shorted by a minimum of $150 million to as much as $540 million over a century.

At the governor’s request, lawmakers approved $250 million for the campus improvements two years ago, but those funds can be used for housing.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who raised questions at the last meeting about TSU’s deal with Glover, said people didn’t trust the former chief financial officer and legal counsel to handle finances but that he’s willing to give the new leadership more time. He also said TSU is likely to need more financial help this spring to make payroll, though he wasn’t sure what the university’s summer school expenses entail.

“It looks like they’ll have to get additional funding unless they figure out how to make additional cuts,” Sexton said.

Democratic state Sen. Charlane Oliver of Nashville said she has confidence in the university to continue operating.

“They’ve always kept it together … since their founding. So this won’t break us,” Oliver said.







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[1] Url: https://tennesseelookout.com/2024/12/17/tennessee-state-expects-litigation-over-severing-consulting-contract-with-former-president/

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