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What Others Say THE ISSUE: The state school board has established basic rules for two-year colleges operating a private foundation on the side. Good. A private foundation that runs in connection with a college or school isn't, by definition, a bad thing. These kinds of foundations can provide scholarships and all sorts of extras that make the difference between a so-so education and a great one. But if there's not enough oversight, or the wrong people are providing that oversight, a private foundation also can be used as a conduit for corruption and even crime. Recent events have proved that. That's why it was gratifying to see the state school board adopt standard rules governing foundations that operate at Alabama's two-year colleges. The new policy, which affects foundations at colleges as well as in the two-year college central office, requires that formal agreements or contracts be established to spell out the relationship between the public entity involved and the private foundation. Furthermore, it requires foundations to keep records and be audited every year, limits the role college employees can play in foundations, forbids colleges from forcing employees to donate and mandates that foundation boards meet at least four times a year. These new rules weren't hatched in a vacuum, of course. They came after disclosures that some foundations associated with the two-year college system had been allowed to run amok. Specifically, they had become places where tax money disappeared and insiders had a ready source of cash for their pet projects and even personal expenses. In one of the most egregious cases, a state legislator who worked in the two-year system sent state money to a foundation at the Alabama Fire College, then got most of it back for his personal use. Former state Rep. Bryant Melton pleaded guilty to state and federal charges in that case. In Melton's case, the dollars involved numbered into the tens of thousands. In the case of a shadowy foundation run at the two-year system's central office, the numbers ran into the millions of dollars. Clearly, the system needs to account for what happened to the money in the past, and that effort is ongoing, according to two-year college Chancellor Bradley Byrne. But it's just as important for the school board to establish the basic rules that will make sure in the future these entities are used only for worthy purposes. Toward that end, the board laid a decent foundation last Thursday.
The Birmingham News
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