Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Rangers and state comptroller to investigate Texas Southern University‘s finances after the state auditor allegedly uncovered mismanagement worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including asset oversight, contracting and financial reporting.
“Waste, fraud, and abuse will not be tolerated,” Abbott said on X. “TSU’s Board of Regents and all university officials must fully cooperate with these investigations to ensure taxpayer dollars are not squandered.”
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Abbott’s announcement came Monday after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick released a copy of the state auditor’s “interim update” on the audit, which has not been finalized. Patrick also said he would ask Abbott and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, to work with him to freeze the Legislature’s appropriations to the university.
Abbott did not address a possible freeze in his statement, and his office did not return a request for comment. Burrows said that he would work with Abbott and Patrick to identify any potential misuse of state funds, and would exercise their authority as members of the Legislative Budget Board as needed.
TSU officials said Monday that they had already remedied some issues. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to further questions, including what a freeze on state funding would mean for the school’s 1,400 faculty and staff and more than 9,000 students.
The university, a historically Black institution, is slated to receive almost $123 million from the state in the 2026 fiscal year, supporting a $248 million operating budget.
“Texas Southern University has cooperated with the state auditor in evaluating our processes,” officials said in a statement. “The University enacted corrective measures prior to the release of the interim report, including a new procurement system. We look forward to gaining clarity and continuing to work with the state auditor to ensure transparency for all taxpayers of Texas.”
Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock said in a statement that he “stands ready” to assist the Texas Rangers in the investigation. He called the interim report’s findings “alarming,” including allegations of missing asset records, late financial reports and money tied to expired contracts.
“These aren’t clerical mistakes; they’re systemic failures that demand answers,” Hancock said.
Patrick also said that the details in the audit update were “disturbing,” and he cited them as the latest in a list of problems Texas Southern has faced in the recent years, including other financial scandals, administrative turnover and low graduation rates.
Texas Southern University supporters have disputed similar characterizations in the last two decades, staunchly defended their status as the last independent public university in the state. TSU is the sole public university in Texas that isn’t a member of a broader system overseeing multiple institutions, like the Texas A&M System.
State auditor Lisa Collier’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the scope and time period of the audit that is now sparking further investigations into Texas Southern. She shared her overview of the allegations to Patrick and other top officials in an “interim update” to the legislature on Monday, which Patrick also posted on X. The final audit report has not been drafted or released.
In the update, Collier said her office began the audit in May and found that staffing shortages contributed to “significant financial and operational weaknesses related to asset management, procurement and contracting, and financial reporting.”
Among the problems: a lack of annual physical inventories and a system for tracking assets that was incomplete, outdated and inconsistently maintained, Collier said.
Her office also found issues in the contract procurement process, with 743 invoices totaling about $282.2 million for vendors whose contracts were listed as expired, and 8,144 invoices worth $158 million with invoice dates that were too early, she said. It’s unclear what time period the allegations cover.
Other transactions didn’t have valid contracts, which were either expired, unsigned or not clearly able to cover the services or goods purchased, Collier said in the letter. And audited financial statements for the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years were completed 10 months and 4 months, respectively, past the state’s deadlines.
Collier said her office is meeting with Texas Southern officials on Thursday to discuss the results of the audit.
This story will be updated with more information.
This article originally published at Abbott orders Texas Rangers investigation into Texas Southern after audit alleges financial misuse.