The facts seem to be fairly basic.
Officials at Baton Rouge Community College misappropriated more than a quarter-million dollars in student technology fees to illegally bump the salaries of five employees during fiscal year 2017.
Then-Chancellor Dr. Larissa Littleton-Steib acknowledged as much in a Dec. 13, 2017 letter to Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera, whose office had verified the misapplication of $260,733 of the funds in its Dec. 27, 2017, AUDIT REPORT.
The letter from Littleton-Steib said that BRCC management “concurs” with the findings and that management “recognizes its responsibility for maintaining compliance” with state law. It further outlined “corrective action” she said would be taken to “mitigate future risk and errors.”
There was no indication as to whether or not the recipients of the illegal salary increases would be required to repay the money.
Purpera’s office had been tipped off by George Thompson in early 2016 of the practice which apparently had been going for several years and which could have ultimately resulted in the misapplication of more than a million dollars between 2012 and 2017.
Thompson was subsequently fired and wife Lisa Thompson have filed a lawsuit in 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge against the Board of Supervisors of Community and Technical Colleges and Ronald Solomon, Chief Information Officer for BRCC.
Thompson was hired by BRCC as Student Technology Fee Lab Coordinator in April 2008. The Technology Fee Committee Agreement was approved in 2005 and was already in place when he was hired.
That agreement mandated a committee of voting members with students holding the majority of memberships. The original agreement also mandated that it could only be amended upon a vote of at least two-thirds of the members.
In May 2012, Thompson was informed by Vice-Chancellor for Administration Pam Diez that she had drafted a new agreement which was being put in place and which would make the original agreement “less restrictive,” according to Thompson’s petition.
Two months later, in July, Thompson was notified that the Student Technology Department was disbanded and that he would be reporting to Chief Information Officer Ronald Solomon.
In November 2012, Solomon introduced a new agreement which he said was retroactive to Sept. 14, 2012, which reduced the committee’s membership to a student minority status and made Solomon chairperson of the committee despite the Student Government Associations’ never having approved the appointment of Solomon as chairperson.
When Thompson brought up the requirement for a committee meeting to approve any funding and that there had been no committee meetings concerning student the fee disbursements, as required, for the entirety of 2013, Interim Auxiliary Services Director Timothy Johnson “became abusive and cautioned that the money may have been used to fill other budget gaps and warned (Thompson) that questioning discrepancies and the status of the student tech budget was hazardous to (Thompson’s) job security,” Thompson’s lawsuit claims.
The kicker came in the summer of 2014 when Thompson made an electronic submission for “small, routing requisitions” for Solomon’s approval from the fee proceeds and the request was returned as “NSF.”
Thompson then researched the system which revealed “large fee expenditures for ‘compensation of board members,’” the lawsuit says. “Additionally, the system showed that salary items had increased substantially since 2012 although no committee meetings had been called to discuss and approve these items,” it said.
Thompson met with Solomon on Friday, May 8, 2015 to discuss plans for summer school registration and during that meeting, Thompson says he reminded Solomon that there was “potential for legal issues” since BRCC had had no meetings or accountability to the students regarding use of the fee proceeds in more than two years. Thompson says in his lawsuit that Solomon “vowed that students would never be allowed to control the fee proceeds.”
One week later, Solomon escorted Thompson to Human Resources where he was handed his termination notice.
He maintains in his lawsuit that he was subjected to systematic harassment by BRCC administrative personnel after he raised questions about the misuse of the fee funds.
“LA. R.S. 17:3351.1 required an annual accounting of the use of monies derived from the fee and a written plan developed where the students have the opportunity to make recommendations concerning the use of fee proceeds,” his lawsuit said.
To view that statute, click HERE.
The Thompsons are represented by Baton Rouge attorney J. Arthur Smith, III.
Louisiana Voice 
What a tangled web is always weaved in Louisiana higher education system(s).
Regardless of anything else, I do not believe the employees who received the raises should pay anything back unless they were in a position to grant themselves pay raises or committed payroll fraud.
In all things like this, the people who actually had the authority to cause things to happen are the ones to blame and who should be held accountable. All too often, this is not the case and, when there are no consequences for them, what is their incentive to change? One doesn’t have to know the law to know the difference between what is right and what is wrong.
During my career in state government, I learned there was always much more to every story like this than the surface and I would imagine that is also the case here. Let’s just hope the web doesn’t become so complex nobody is held accountable.
I recall something similar happening at LSU a few years ago. Going on memory, it involved a prof in the art department blowing the whistle on misappropriation of student studio fees. She was fired and sued. Wagons circled. Coverup. Etc. When the foxes are in charge of the henhouse, the hens don’t stand a chance.
I am too ignorant to comment but my guess is the Admin folks may have been Jindalites who were trying to protect their henhouse from other foxes, who were spending the fees at the republican/ Jindal controlled legislature, just guessing and go get’em Art. ron thompson
In Lose-ee-ana there seems to be no consequences for anything. Just read the LSU sports “stuff” that’s happening now. And yes, Bobby J. truly messed up EVERYTHING in this state. Health AND Higher Ed. ALL education. This state never moved forward before it moved backward.
This stealing in the college’s started with Daytona State College on how they charge an administrative fee, and every kind of fee they can add legally without bringing the attention to stealing. In 2012 they used to charge the student one fee and that was per credit hour. Now they add every fee on top of the credit hour. Which is ripping the student off, because they can take their pell grant money, when the students used to get some back to live off of while going to school. Do the research they doing it in all the colleges in Louisiana.
You are absolutely correct. I did a story a few years ago about the fees charged by Louisiana colleges and universities. It’s really an eye-opener. The fees that are tacked on are mind-boggling.
BRCC is corrupt to the core. I worked there for 3 years when the college first opened in 1996. It was rotten administratively then—and nothing has changed in the intervening years. It was initially staffed with rejects from Southern University in Baton Rouge, and I see that despite multiple lawsuits against BRCC, it has done little to police itself and clean up its corruption.