North Dakota's Board of Higher Education has met opposition to its plans to add staff to supervise spending.
That's the board's job, legislators said at a meeting of the Interim Higher Education Committee last week.
That's right -- but it's not sufficient.
Membership on the Board of Higher Education is not a full-time appointment. Members have other lives.
The board does have a staff -- a highly paid staff. It's the staff's job to watch spending.
ADVERTISEMENT
The board staff argues that it needs help to keep track of spending on college campuses.
Arguments presented at the committee meeting were just a rehearsal for what is certain to be a major debate during the next legislative session, and potentially during the election campaign that precedes it.
It's an important argument.
All of this takes place against a background of unsupervised excess, especially at North Dakota State University, where an audit revealed runaway overruns on the president's house there.
UND is guilty, too, though the sums spent and the careless arrogance that accompanied the spending were considerably less here.
This situation developed from a weakness in the state's higher education system. The board was intimidated by a strong president at NDSU. Board members didn't insist on the kind of oversight a project as important as the president's house demanded, and board staff didn't provide it.
Rather than more staff, the board needs more backbone. Had board members stood up to bullying by NDSU's president, the staff might have kept closer track on spending.
But the board didn't do that.
ADVERTISEMENT
That's the history.
What about the future?
The Legislature needs to be very careful with its supervision of the higher education system. In the past, micromanaging by lawmakers has hampered growth in the state's colleges and universities.
An important initiative -- led by legislators -- freed the campuses by giving the Board of Higher Education more authority, and hence more flexibility.
The result has been spectacular growth in the quality of the state's institutions, a fact reflected on campuses statewide.
That's made the university system a major player in the state. It helped North Dakota weather the recession much more comfortably than any other state, and it has positioned North Dakota to continue to benefit further as the national and global economics improve.
Setting the Legislature up as a supervisor of campuses would jeopardize that -- by injecting political particularism and slowing down decision-making.
What the Legislature must do instead is to strengthen the board by making it completely clear that each of the campuses are responsible to the board office, headed by the chancellor, through the Board of Higher Education, which makes policy.
ADVERTISEMENT
The board will need the strength to meet challenges from administrators -- but once it demonstrates its position, it will find that the excesses at NDSU will vanish because there will be clear supervision.
Will it take additional staff to do that?
Probably.
The Legislature is right to debate the issue, nevertheless. Debate will help clarify the roles that any new employees might play. It will also force the board to define its own role more clearly -- and that will help strengthen the board's hand.
The debacle at NDSU occurred when a powerful force, the activist president, encountered a relative vacuum, a board uncertain of its mission and uncomfortable with its doubt.
The board must resolve those issues.
When that's done, it will be clear whether more auditors or building supervisors are needed.
