Feds to investigate CCSN bonus program

Jennifer Knight

Thursday, April 12, 2001 | 11:13 a.m.

Although a preliminary federal investigation found no wrongdoing, the U.S. Department of Education plans to take a closer look at a Community College of Southern Nevada bonus program for possible violations, a spokesman said this week.

The federal review comes in the wake of a recent attorney general's report that cited irregularities at the school and will focus on the CCSN program that handed out bonuses to four administrators under the direction of former President Richard Moore.

"It does not appear that bonuses were used as sales incentives. However, we are going to follow up with the school to determine the specifics with regard to the 'Enrollment Management Special Project' and obtain a description of the additional duties that were assigned," education department spokesman Roger Murphey said Tuesday.

Awarding commissions or incentive bonuses to employees based on their success in securing enrollment is prohibited under the federal Higher Education Act.

The Computer Learning Centers recently had $187 million in federal funding pulled for violating that law after the department found it gave incentive bonuses to recruiting officers based on how many students they enrolled. The company's financial problems also played into that decision, federal education department officials said.

CCSN participates in the same federally funded loan program, which provides up to $5 million a year to the institution, about 4 percent of the school's biennial budget. During the year in question, the college's federal aid jumped from $3 million in 1998 to $4 million in 1999.

"I set up an (enrollment) target for them," Moore said. "Whatever the number was for the previous year, I set an appreciably larger target than that, (about of 40 percent). I knew that in order to do that, it would take an extra amount of time, effort and inventiveness."

Moore said that the enrollment goals came from the university system Board of Regents, who charged him with increasing the college-going rate in Southern Nevada.

Administrators and recruiters working under this program helped double enrollment within a short period of time, something that Moore said was worthy of a bonus.

Details of how the so-called "Enrollment Management Special Project" worked could not released by the attorney general's office, because they are considered personnel-related issues not subject to the open records laws, said Greg Smith, deputy chief of investigations for the Attorney General's office. But the investigation did report that bonuses were paid out to four administrators as part of the project.

Both Arlie Stops, associate vice president for admissions and records, and Marion Littlepage, the associate vice president for curriculum development, received bonuses on two occasions. The bonuses totaled $9,000 per person.

Al Daniels, an interim dean for distance education, received $6,000, and Erika Dixon, associate director of recruitment, received a $2,000 bonus, the report said.

In earlier interviews with Stops, he said that the bonuses were given as a matter of course as a reward for bringing in more enrollments.

The money for the bonuses came from a discretionary host account, one of the areas that a university and community college system audit proposes to look into.

The use of bonus incentives often is a common scenario in academics, said Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel for the American Counsel on Education, an organization that represents nonprofit colleges and universities. " It probably is not an uncommon scenario wherein the admission staff may receive a bonus or some kind of bonuses if they meet a particular goal on the number of assigned students," Steinbach said.

"It can only be determined by an investigation of the facts whether this was a legitimate incentive program or whether it was designed to circumvent the federal law."

A determination in the case is expected in a few months.