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The University of Central Florida (UCF) chief financial officer and vice president for administration and finance, Bill Merck, stepped down Thursday after an auditor revealed the university had misused $38 million in state funds to construct the newly-opened Trevor Colbourn Hall, Orlando Weekly reported.
In a statement to the UCF campus, Dale Whittaker, university president, said that the university paid back the $38 million to the state by tapping into the university's auxiliary and concession funds. The Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system, is concerned that the misstep could have consequences for the system's budget process.
"We're going to have a more difficult time, as we should, with the Legislature, making sure we know what the hell we're doing here and we're on top of things," Ned Lautenbach, board chairman, told the Orlando Weekly. "I am personally very disappointed in this."
The university will undergo an external investigation into the "process, procedures and personnel concerning how we finance facilities," Whittaker wrote. Whittaker appointed Misty Shepherd, associate vice president and CFO at the UCF Foundation, as interim vice president for administration and finance and Kathy Mitchell, associate director of University Audit, to serve as interim CFO.
