Sophomore Gaelen Kinkead (right) sits next to his sophomore friend Ashley Findley on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Sept. 19. Occurrence of poor board governance. (Ben B. Brown, Deseret News)
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SALT LAKE CITY — According to a recent audit, the majority of Utah’s degree-granting public institutions of higher learning — six out of eight — lag behind their peers and national averages in terms of graduation rates.
“Utah seems to be far behind many other states,” said audit supervisor Jesse Martinson.
A legislative audit evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of the Utah higher education system found “several occurrences of poor board governance” within the Utah Higher Education Commission.
“Congress has made clear in the code how it wants the board to govern the higher education system,” Martinson said. “They’ve also prioritized the higher education system by as much as $1.3 billion…so clearly higher education is a very high priority by Congress.”
Board members said they were working to turn the tide.
Higher Education Commissioner Lisa Church said, “Utah taxpayers and Utah students need a system that works, and their completion numbers aren’t working. We know that. We are taking initiatives to change that.
The audit identified three specific areas of improvement that the Board could work on, including approving tuition fees, evaluating the Chancellor, and monitoring operational efficiency.
As far as approving tuition fees is concerned, Martinson said that when the board looked into the issue in its 2018 audit, the board “didn’t have much debate[and]really had independent and objective information.” decision on whether tuition fees need to be increased. ”
“Unfortunately, we didn’t see much improvement,” says Martinson.
The audit also pointed out problems with president evaluations at degree-granting institutions.
Looking at the annual presidential evaluations from 2016 to 2022, the audit found that only nine evaluations “should have been at least 40” were completed, Martinson said.
He added that the Higher Education Commission could better support the commission with a “mountain” of underutilized data, and most of the commissions were volunteer committees, with people “wanted” pointed out that it consists of Very big decisions can be made in very large systems in a limited amount of time. ”
The audit asked Congress to confirm its governance requests to the Board.
Agencies spend a lot of money without accountability. They were unable to determine if they were efficient with the funds they were using.
– Jesse Martinson, Audit Supervisor
Looking at where the board currently stands on the governance envelope, Martinson said it’s not where it needs to be.
“It’s more of a coordinating committee than an integration committee,” Martinson said. “Institutions spend a lot of money without being held accountable.
According to the audit, a coordinating board is when a single coordinating board and/or agency is responsible for key aspects of the state’s role for public postsecondary institutions and, in some cases, independent colleges and universities.
Conversely, the Audit is based on the idea that the Consolidated Commission (what the Auditor wants the Commission to be) manages and oversees most functions of the public higher education system and usually has broad powers over the institutions. It states that it is the governing committee of the whole.
The audit also found that institutions have delegated approval of tuition increases to their respective boards along with program approval.
“We saw a huge gap between where we needed to be and where we are now,” Martinson said, adding that through the audit’s recommendations, the board could become the consolidated board that Utah Code wants it to be. said.
The final part of the audit found that Utah’s board is much larger than similarly structured boards in similarly sized states.
Utah’s board currently has 18 members, but other states say Utah has between eight and 13 members after an audit.
“We felt that perhaps the only thing we could do to be more agile and proactive and be more timely responsive was to reduce the size of the board,” Martinson said.
Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson said, “We have an 18-person board and don’t know an effective organization, so maybe we should look into that.
In response to the audit and its recommendations, Church said he believed the state had the appropriate committees to implement the changes the audit suggested.
“We have the tools to do it, but whether we’ve actually stepped up and done it is a question and we welcome discussion.
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