BIRMINGHAM, Ala.
Bishop State Community College employees allegedly arranged for their relatives, including a 67-year-old disabled grandmother enrolled in sports programs, to receive student financial aid, according to The Birmingham News. The newspaper has published reports on an investigation of the school being conducted by state officials.
Dr. Thomas Corts, interim chancellor of Alabama’s two-year college system, ordered the probe last week. It was prompted by records that showed that Bishop State President, Dr. Yvonne Kennedy, who is also a state representative, sent legislative funds to her private foundation in 2003.
Kennedy, who has headed the Mobile, Ala., college since 1981, sent all of her legislative discretionary money — $94,000 — to the Bishop State Community College Foundation, which she created in 1993, state records show.
She had requested the state funding, saying the foundation needed the money to build a laboratory for culinary arts students at the college. But the foundation’s financial records don’t report the expense, instead listing all expenditures as scholarships to hundreds of two-year college students.
Bishop State faced questions last year from state auditors who discovered records of financial aid recipients who didn’t attend the college.
A team of investigators arrived at the college’s financial aid office on Monday, and Corts has told The Birmingham News that the review should be completed late this week or sometime next week.
