Yet with enrollment up and finances stable, campus officials look optimistically toward the future
Despite a probe by Washington, D.C.’s city government investigators
into allegations of funds mismanagement, the president of the
University of the District of Columbia (UDC) said the financially
troubled school begins the 1998-99 school year with a balanced budget
and an enrollment increase from last year.
Dr. Julius F. Nimmons Jr., president of UDC, confirmed last month
that investigators from the Washington, D.C., inspector general’s
office had launched a probe into allegations that tens of thousands of
dollars in two separate departments at the school had been mishandled.
Chris Bartolomucci, a spokesman for the inspector general’s office,
said the inspector general has declined to respond to press inquiries.
A Washington Post news article reported August 12 that the city’s
investigation was launched after Sherrilyn Silver, UDC’s former interim
chief financial officer, reported allegations about the Continuing
Education department and parking garage operations to the city’s
inspector general’s office. Nimmons said although Silver’s actions
resulted in the probe, he and the city’s chief financial officer, Earl
C. Cabbell, had Silver transferred to another city post because Nimmons
had grown frustrated with her lack of cooperation.
Nimmons confirmed that improprieties in the Continuing Education
department resulted in a number of teachers not getting paid regularly
and with funds being misspent over the past year. As a result, the head
of the department, Sandra Edgecombe, was placed on administrative leave
and dismissed in early August.
“There was mismanagement of funds in the Continuing Education
department,” said Nimmons, who added the inspector general’s probe was
warranted given the severity of the problem.
