Regents back fellow member in probe of UT system

Watchdog.org:

The University of Texas Board of Regents threw support to embattled regent Wallace Hall at its meetings this week, approving two measures to reform problems that Hall has spotlighted.

Regents voted for new policies on the relationship between universities and their affiliated foundations, and also approved an audit into how officials respond to public information requests.

Hall is synonymous with both issues. He pointed out financial shenanigans at the University of Texas Law School Foundation, and pressed the University of Texas at Austin for public records by the box load.

For his troubles, UTA President Bill Powers’ allies in the Legislature have initiated impeachment proceedings against Hall.

But the regents don’t appear inclined to allow their executive authority to be usurped by a small band of legislators. A board majority that already tilted toward Hall got stronger this week with three new regents taking their seats, and Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa is challenging the insolence of officials at the UTA who have been refusing to turn over documents to regents.

On Wednesday, Cigarroa recommended “a targeted compliance review” of how officials at at UTA and elsewhere handle requests under the Texas Public Information Act.

The review comes after Kevin Hegarty, a UTA vice-president, said earlier this month that UTA would defy document requests from their lawful overseers in the chancellor’s office and on the board of regents on the grounds that a House committee with no executive authority might also be interested in some of the records. The House committee had sent Hegarty sent a letter and called it a Document Preservation Notice, apparently even using capital letters.

With the condescension of a librarian addressing a sticky-fingered schoolboy, Hegarty told his superiors that files he’d gotten back from the regents “seem to have been tossed back into the boxes at random,”which would hinder him from making any official proclamations of orderliness the House committee might want.
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I have been watching UT politics for about 50 years and it is remarkable how little it has changed.  Going back even further, there has always been some paranoia about oversight whether it is from the regents or in some cases the legislature.  

I got both my undergraduate degree and my law degree from UT and I have great affection for the institution, but something has happened to higher ed in the last few decades that has made it cost more than most Texans can afford.

I think the regents are wise to look into why these costs have risen to such heights and how they can make this great school more efficient in managing its money.  The cost of tuition is already too high.  We can't keep pumping up the cost and cover it by making predatory loans to unsophisticated student borrowers saddling them with a debt that could last a lifetime.  That is bad for the students and the economy.

The attacks on regent Hall are outrageous and they should be stopped.