You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
This month has not been kind to the University of Louisville.
A June 8 report detailed unbudgeted spending, unapproved activities and endowment losses at the university’s foundation. Just a week later, the NCAA announced penalties stemming from a prostitution scandal involving the university’s men’s basketball team’s past recruiting.
Some are taking note, however, of instances when officials raised red flags about the foundation’s behavior. The Courier-Journal of Louisville highlighted the case of one official who wondered whether she was being paid too much. It’s detailed in the report on the foundation.
In a memo dated Feb. 1, 2012, the university’s provost and executive vice president, Shirley Willihnganz, worried she was being overcompensated.
“I don’t remember anything being in the contract about additional $50,000 annual contributions from 2010, [2011] and [2012],” she wrote.
“Obviously if the foundation and president want to give me this, I’ll be grateful,” she wrote. “But I also don’t want to take advantage if this was a mistake … and if I just misread everything and all is well, will be very happy to be wrong.”
She later received a reply from Kathleen Smith, at the time the chief of staff for James Ramsey, who was president of both the university and its foundation before being ousted last year. Smith said that Willihnganz had a good point but that the ambiguity was deliberate and in the employee’s favor. Smith said $50,000 was included in an amendment to Willihnganz’s contract.
“Jim needs you, as does the university, as his provost,” Smith wrote.
The report listed total compensation for Willihnganz between 2010 and 2016 at almost $6.8 million. She spent 13 years as provost before in February 2015 announcing she was leaving. At the time, the university said her salary was $342,694. But the Courier-Journal reported she received $1.8 million in deferred compensation from the foundation in 2012.
Smith’s lawyer told the Courier-Journal the email exchange was a discussion about contract terms, not about whether Willihnganz was paid too much in “absolute terms.”
The lawyer, Ann Oldfather, went on to tell the newspaper that the audit made incorrect suggestions.
“They made everything that was a business judgment call sound like a scheme to rip off the foundation,” Oldfather said, according to the newspaper.
The Courier-Journal report on the foundation also described a September 2013 warning from Justin Ruhl, director of accounting operations, that “off the top” spending from the endowment could cause problems.
