STATE OF MISSISSIPPI OFFICE OF THE STATE AUDITOR SHAD WHITE STATE AUDITOR May 7, 2020 Alfred Rankins, Jr., Commissioner of Higher Education Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning 3825 Ridgewood Road Jackson, MS 39211 Dear Dr. Rankins: I have received your letter. Your formal request is denied. In your letter you allege there were ?important factual inaccuracies? in the FY 2019 Single Audit. The thrust of your objection seems to be that IHL ?did not approve? (emphasis is yours) a sub? lease agreement between the USM Athletic Foundation and the Mississippi Community Education Center (MCEC). If you are trying to establish that IHL did not know MCEC was paying USM with Department of Human Services (DHS) funds for use of USM facilities, then your argument is disproven by IHL Board minutes. In your Board minutes from October 19, 2017, IHL approved a lease, and the minutes show the lease they approved was ?funded through the lease of athletic department facilities by the Mississippi Community Education Center The minutes also acknowledge that funding for this project is via a Block Grant from the Mississippi Department of Human Services.? While IHL may not have approved the original arrangement between MCEC and the USM Athletic Foundation, the audit never suggests this. Instead, the audit shows that IHL approved the lease of land with the understanding that the property would be used by MCEC in exchange for DHS money. IHL cannot claim ignorance of this fact. That assertion ?ies in the face of your own minutes. If IHL objected to the arrangement with MCEC, then the time to voice that objection was when the matter came up for a vote, not after the State Auditor pointed it out. One of the audit?s central points is that MCEC never used the facility it ?leased,? and, as a result, the payment from MCEC represented nothing more than a donation to the USM Athletic Foundation (Nancy New, head of MCEC, served on the Foundation?s board at the time). If you had argued that IHL did not know MCEC would fail to use the facility, and therefore did not know this payment would be a donation, that argument would be well?taken. Many recipients of MCEC money did not know why they benefitted from Nancy New?s largesse and did not understand New?s intentions. Moreover, if you had argued that IHL did not know the ?Block Grant? from MCEC was a TANF block grant, then that might have been a stronger argument, too. Instead, you chose to allege the audit was inaccurate. It is not. IHL knew DHS money paid for a ?lease? agreement for a campus facility. Your objection strikes me as nothing more than quibbling with word choice in the audit while ignoring that important point. Instead of quibbling, perhaps your time could be better spent providing the public with a plan for the Wellness Center to be used by the at?risk POST OFFICE BOX 956 0 JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI 39205 0 (601) 576-2800 - FAX (601) 576-2650 community in Hattiesburg and providing that to me in a letter. This way, the TANF money that was paid for the Center might be used to bene?t the community it was intended to bene?t. I hope this letter is clear about my position on this issue. There will be no change to the audit report. Thank you for your attention to this matter.