Adam Zuvanich/Houston Public Media
Students walk on the campus of Texas Southern University in Houston on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024.
Houston-area state Sen. Borris Miles, a Texas Southern University alumnus, said he was deeply concerned but not shocked when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick posted on social media an interim report by State Auditor Lisa Collier, alleging the school had mismanaged hundreds of millions of dollars.
“I wasn’t overly surprised,” Miles said. “The legislative body here, the leadership here in Austin has for years been trying to put Texas Southern in a light to be taken over by another system.”
Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday ordered an investigation into Texas Southern, a historically Black university in Houston’s Third Ward with more than 8,000 students. Miles expressed deep concern for the motive of the investigation and called the way the interim report was made public “disrespectful” and “sensationalize[d].”
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When asked for comment regarding Miles’ concerns, Abbott’s press office referred Houston Public Media to his earlier statement from Monday.
“The Texas State Auditor uncovered significant financial and operational issues with Texas Southern University’s accounting procedures, alleging the potential misappropriation of hundreds of millions of dollars,” Abbott said. “Waste, fraud, and abuse will not be tolerated. TSU’s Board of Regents and all university officials must fully cooperate with these investigations to ensure taxpayer dollars are not squandered.”
Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, a TSU alumnus of the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, said any financial issues at the school must be addressed. But he shared Miles’ concern over the governor’s “rush” to order an investigation by the Texas Rangers.
Ellis said it “fits a broader pattern of political attacks on higher education and institutions serving Black and brown students.”
Ellis added that as a public university, TSU’s regents are appointed by the governor, who has been in office since 2015.
“Accountability starts at the top; if there are issues with TSU, the buck stops with the governor, not with the regents he appointed years ago,” Ellis wrote in a statement. “You can’t chronically underfund an institution, leave critical positions vacant, and then act shocked by audit findings.”
Patrick’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
In his Monday post on X requesting an investigation, he wrote, “Sadly, TSU has come under scrutiny in the past over how finances and contracts have been handled, as well as shoddy work done by contractors. There has been a revolving door of presidents, board members, and school officials. Graduation rates have not met expectations. The legislature has continued year-after-year to try to help the school. It appears the legislature has been misled over this time period on promised improvements in accounting practices and contracting.”
Ed Castillo/Houston Public Media
Front gate of Texas Southern University. Taken on January 31, 2020.
The audit of the university has been ongoing since May, and the interim report detailed “significant financial and operational weaknesses” at the school.
Collier said the university had not kept up with physical inventories of its assets and that the preliminary report found hundreds of invoices awarded prior to receiving approval and many invoices awarded to vendors with expired contracts. TSU is also accused of being late with financial reporting for at least the past two fiscal years.
School says it’s addressed deficiencies
The university said in a statement that many of those issues have already been addressed. University officials planned to meet with Collier on Thursday to discuss the audit. Miles said earlier in the week that he planned to be in attendance for the meeting.
Miles said he learned of the report and audit on Monday with the rest of the public.
“I’m not happy about that,” Miles said. “I can assure you the rest of the way I will be deeply tuned in.”
Miles said he spoke with Abbott, Patrick and Collier on Wednesday to address some of his concerns in the initial report. Miles told Houston Public Media that he pressed the governor on Patrick’s social media post, which said Patrick was working to freeze TSU’s appropriations.
“It’s not going to be the student money,” Miles said. “It’s going to be for future projects going forward.”
University president J.W. Crawford III, who assumed the rule in June of last year, wrote in a Wednesday letter to the TSU community that “while Texas Southern University had not yet received the interim audit report, it has fully cooperated with the office of the State Auditor in its evaluation of the University’s financial processes.”
He added that after the university’s own internal assessment identified deficiencies, the school had since implemented a series of corrective measures prior to the state auditor’s involvement, including reviewing contract execution, updating training requirements and implementing a new procurement system with integrated checks and balances.
Miles said the school needs to be given a chance to explain these allegations before people come to a conclusion.
“If there are some problems with Texas Southern, then these are things that need to be addressed,” Miles said. “But to just put something, accusations like this and sensationalize them and not even think of the consideration of what the students have to go through in hearing things like this, is a problem.”