Approved on May 27, 2015
ND Higher Education Challenge Fund Special Meeting Minutes
February 13, 2015 4 - 5 p.m.
Governor’s Conference Room
Conference Call Number: 888-346-3659
Participant Passcode: 58505
Present: Lieutenant Governor Drew Wrigley, Representative Bob Martinson, Senator Joan Heckaman, Kathleen Neset, Rick Burgum, and Connie Nicholas.
Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley called the meeting to order at 4:11 p.m.
Committee Business
Lake Region State College Match Funding
The Lt. Gov. asked LRSC to explain their situation to the committee.
President Doug Darling explained that LRSC’s Foundation has a very small staff that has been working hard to meet a fundraising challenge larger than any ever attempted previously at LRSC. The Foundation has had to create a new process that would allow them to track Challenge Fund match dollars. The local community embraced the challenge and did what they could to help the college meet their $2 million goal, but few donors had the capacity to make large gifts, resulting in many smaller ones. The need to process so many small gifts increased the gift tracking challenge and the opportunity for error.Many of the errors that did occur took place in the final applications for match funding submitted to the committee. The Foundation staff had planned to carefully audit every transaction before submitting the final match request, but this was not possible because of the heavy “traffic” through the office by donors making year end gifts, and because of the need to meet the January 2, 2015, deadline for submission of match funding applications. LRSC submitted 15 applications twice accidentally and submitted two applications for the incorrect dollar amount.
LRSC, therefore, submitted applications for match funding to be reviewed by the committee at this special meeting, in hopes that the committee would allow them to replace the applications that had been approved twice or had been approved in the wrong dollar amount. These applications totaled $47,050.
The Lt. Gov. thanked Pres. Darling for bringing the issue to the attention of Ashley Portra and added that he thought this was a suitable suggestion.
Portra stated that the match funding that had been approved twice was for LRSC fundraising campaigns and noted that the replacement applications were for those exact fundraising campaigns as well.
Rep. Bob Martinson moved to approve the replacement funds. Sen. Joan Heckaman seconded. Motion carried.
Before the committee was adjourned, the Lt. Gov. wanted to address an article that had been posted on the Say Anything Blog earlier in the week which criticized the Challenge Fund committee’s approval of match funding for athletic scholarships. The Lt. Gov. had spoken with Mr. Port prior to the article being posted to try and answer any questions Mr. Port had and there is not much more the committee can do about it. The Lt. Gov. wanted to bring this issue to the committee’s attention and to clarify that student athletic scholarships are eligible as long as those dollars are used for school tuition. The committee members agreed. The Grand Forks Herald and Fargo Forum contacted the Lt. Gov. and interviewed him regarding this issue prior to this committee meeting. The Lt. Gov. stated that he did his best to explain the committee’s decisions and thought process behind them.
Sen. Heckaman asked what the status of the current Challenge Fund bill (HB 1151) up for review by the House of Representatives was. The Lt. Gov. explained that the bill is currently in Appropriations and $10 million has been cut from the funding because of budget issues. He added that the committee would like to get those funds reinstated once the bill has been passed into the Senate.
Sen. Heckaman asked if the committee had received any updates from Dickinson State University. The Lt. Gov. replied that the committee had not. Portra said she would look into it and get back to the committee.
Meeting adjourned at 4:20 p.m.