After the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools issued a 12-month warning to South Carolina State University last summer, university officials have said that they’ve taken proactive measures to address the concerns of the accrediting agency.
Financial stability and board governance were two of the key areas of concern cited in the SACS warning issued to the University, said Sonja A. Bennett-Bellamy, a spokesman for the university. She said that a $13.6 million request to state lawmakers and the governor would provide immediate cash flow to enable the school to pay its outstanding bills and continue to deliver essential services.
“South Carolina State is confident that SACS will see tangible evidence that the university has initiated a plan for achieving long-term financial stability, ensuring that its mission to provide quality academic programs to students will not be compromised as the result of these short-term challenges,” said Bennett-Bellamy, who pointed out that SACS was back on campus this week for a follow-up visit.
Dr. Thomas Elzey, who was sworn in last summer as the president of the state’s only public HBCU, petitioned lawmakers for the funds after outside vendors who run the university bookstore and food services and provide campus maintenance all threatened to stop providing services to the 4,500 students until they received back pay from the university.
“When I walked in the door, I found there was a huge amount of things that were kept under the table,” Elzey told the South Carolina State Budget and Control Board last month at a public hearing. “People weren’t talking about it and were not fully disclosing [it] to me, even as president. We continue to peel it back and find additional things about the university as we work through it.”
While Elsey publicly has said that he is confident that the school will have a balanced budget after July, emergency funds are needed now, he says, so as not to place the school’s accreditation in peril.
