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20, 2013
Special report completed by accountants; Dobelle praised by Board of Trustees Documents presented to the Board of Trustees raised eyebrows but Evan Dobelle wasn’t found to have been malicious in his spending
Joshua Clark Editor-in-Chief
Dr. Evan S. Dobelle, the nineteenth president of Westfield State University, began his sixth full school year of that tenure on the fourth of September. Recently cleared by the university’s accounting firm, O’Connor & Drew, P.C., of spending university and foundation funds lavishly with malicious intent, he is still awaiting the response from the Inspector General. Dobelle sat in his office with a look of relief on his face on September 17, the day of an exclusive interview that began a series of interviews between this newspaper and him. In recent months, however, Dobelle has become the center of a controversy regarding how he has spent university and foundation money. The scandal began in October 2012 when the university’s board of trustees received an anonymous package containing documents regarding Dobelle’s
Cheyne Ordonio contributed to reporting on this article.
spending. The board contacted their accountants, O’Connor & Drew, who immediately drew procedures outlining how they would look into the documents received to determine whether fraud or malicious actions were taken. In December of that same year, a draft report was given to the board by the firm, through their representative accountant, David Diiulis. This report pertained to the university only, and it was decided around the beginning of this year that both the university and the Westfield State University Foundation, Inc. would need to be analyzed to determine wrongdoing, if any existed. The board of trustees of both the university and the foundation received the analysis that took both organizations into account. The document was then proofread and sent to the university board in order to procure a response from Dobelle pertaining to its findings. Dobelle hadn’t responded until the August 29 Board of Trustees meeting when the findings of the analysis were made public. The fact that a response was not made drew ire from several members of the board of trustees, who felt that the president opened himself up to unnecessary criticism by not providing a context for which
the expenses could be justified. The analysis, as it was called, determined that Dobelle had in fact violated university policy with some of his expenditures. It also mentioned that the president didn’t act with malicious intent, but made some of the expenditures, a multitude of a personal nature, by mistake. When asked if the president had any personal expenses that were unpaid, Diiulis said no. When the trustees had an opportunity to question Diiulis after his presentation, they were concerned as to why the president wasn’t interviewed or questioned. Diiulis said that the only interaction that was to be had with the president would be a written response to the completed report. Since the president failed to comply with such requests by the accounting firm in that aspect, the report would fail to include such interaction quite purposefully. Diiulis did acknowledge that there was a lot of subjectivity with some of the spending, but without a response from Dobelle, there would be no explanation for the individual expenditures. And that is true for many of them. For instance, wire transfers made to China and Vietnam were listed in the report as having “no substantiation.” Concert tickets, cigars, ex-
pensive dinners, hotel rooms, airfares for trips made during the president’s noted vacation time, and many other expenses were charged to both the university’s and the foundation’s credit cards. Although all of the expenses deemed personal were repaid, according to the accounting firm, there are many other expenses that were deemed “above ‘reasonable and necessary’.” After Diiulis gave the report, the Board of Trustees then listened to Dobelle’s statement. In his statement, he argued see CLARK on page twenty-one
In this week’s issue Campus pages 2-8 Student Gov. meetings “The Marketplace” University Hall reaction Op-Ed pages 9-12 ‘The Conservative View’ ‘From the Editor’s Desk’ ‘Gentlemen’s Weekly’ A&E pages 15-17 Album reviews ‘Knowing to Cook’ ‘“Voice” Vault’ Sports pages 18-20 Owls Football Lady Owls’ Volleyball ‘Overthinking It’
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