Audit: College paid nonprofits’ online bills

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, Sept. 8, 2000 | 10:42 a.m.

The Community College of Southern Nevada paid the monthly bills for phone lines connecting loaned-out computers to the Internet at three area nonprofit groups, according to a report issued today.

Interim Chancellor Jane Nichols provided University and Community College System Board of Regents with documentation of monthly bills exceeding $100 for nine school computers loaned to the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Latin Chamber of Commerce and a local American Association of Retired Persons job training center.

CCSN paid the bills from the day the computers were loaned out. The Latin Chamber was online for about two years and the NAACP and AARP were online for one year before computers were returned in July and August.

The computers were used as part of an outreach program to help recruit students and to provide access for online registration, said Robert Silverman, interim college president.

Former CCSN President Richard Moore defended the loan of the computers. He said the program is a "national model" for helping minorities and women access higher education.

Regent Steve Sisolak disagreed with that assessment.

"I don't want to be discriminatory, how can you provide equipment for three groups when 300 or 3,000 other agencies don't have the same opportunity to utilize the same state resources," Sisolak said. Nichols also revealed that CCSN loaned the Rafael Rivera Community Center a computer, but did not provide Internet access.

Nichols also detailed the value of used furniture provided for the principal's office at Foothill High School as part of an update on a formal investigation into alleged mismanagement and misappropriations of funding at CCSN. The furniture, which has since been returned, was worth nearly $16,000.

Other allegations have persisted as well, including complaints of enrollment padding, the doctoring of grades and irregular hiring and promotion practices. But Nichols provided no new information on those allegations, saying that she wanted to give faculty returning to campuses an opportunity to submit any additional information.

Nichols did say, however, that questions have been raised over practices of providing bonuses at CCSN. Her preliminary recommendation was to discontinue the practice.

Nichols said she expects to give a third, more conclusive report in October. She added that she felt it was "awkward and probably an inappropriate role" for an interim chancellor to have to conduct the investigation.

"The purpose of this very unusual review by this office is to face squarely the allegations we've been hit with repeatedly by the newspapers," she said.