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EMBEZZLEMENT IN OU'S DEPARTMENT OF
INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS
OU's associate AD for business and internal operations,
resigned from the department in
June 2007 for various reasons.
News reports - linked below - state that he pleaded guilty
in court to stealing from OU by misusing his Pcard. According to news
reports he also allegedly misappropriated athletic
event parking receipts. The amount in question is approximately
$30,000. He reportedly paid restitution of $31,075.
In addition, his annual salary is reported to be $74,200, easily enough to have paid the annual operating expenses for the cut
Men's Swimming and Diving and Men's Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field teams.
Some of the dollars you "minor
sports" athletes collected from sports fans at OU's "major
sports" events as you volunteered your time managing the parking lots were
possibly "misappropriated."
This is the same person who probably played a
significant role in the decision to cut teams, the decision to keep the team cut
process secret from everyone, and then the decision to ambush all of us on January
25, 2007, with the news that the teams we worked so hard to build were no more.
News reports state that he will be sentenced on September
20, 2007.
Stay tuned to this site and we will update you on further
press reports on this debacle at OU.
Published Thursday, September 27, 2007.
Matt Zapotosky / Editor in Chief / mz152904@ohiou.edu
A former Ohio University Athletics Department employee who pleaded guilty to
misusing his university purchasing card to steal more than $31,000 was formally
sentenced Tuesday to five years probation, 100 hours of community service and
two days in jail.
Robert Andrey, 38, had pleaded guilty to one count of theft in office, a
fourth-degree felony, in July, and he has already paid back $31,075.82 to the
university, according to a news release from the Athens County Prosecutor's
office.
Andrey was accused of misappropriating funds generated by parking fees on game
days and falsifying documents related to those funds.
Investigators could not determine how Andrey used the stolen money.
Swim Team Parent asks important questions and raises
important issues - Will OU's Administration respond?
Your Turn: OU tries to keep summer theft under wraps
Published Wednesday, September 5, 2007.
Letter to the Editor
The rest of the story…..
Rob Andrey will be remembered around Athens as the thief
with impeccable timing. Leaving aside why someone who steals over $30,000 walks
away with paying restitution and probation, his timing (being caught and
convicted over the summer) provided Ohio University with an opportunity to
quietly sweep this incident under the rug without critically examining what went
wrong with the scrutiny that comes when school is in session. The story reads,
“Rob Andrey is a crook, he was caught by the whistle blower procedures of the
university, Kirby Hocutt took immediate and decisive action in firing Andrey,
and the Athens police took over.” All of this was reported and announced over
the summer and the university has moved on. Not so fast … There are a number
of important issues that need to be addressed before moving on.
The May 2006 Internal Audit report identified that the
lack of internal controls within the Athletic Department (AD) was a critical
issue that needed to be addressed immediately. The AD itself “acknowledges
that there were less than satisfactory fiscal controls in place.” Among the
nine major control issues raised in this report, budgetary expense approval,
PCard expense authorization and control of gate receipts were identified as
“opportunities for significant improvement.” A review of the procedures that
the AD put in place can best be summarized as, “We hired Rob Andrey to clean
up our mess.” From the Internal Audit Report:
(Andrey) “has reviewed and for the most part rewritten
the Policies and Procedures to improve internal management. The new policies,
which have been approved by Finance, create stricter policies for (the AD) than
currently exists for Ohio University.”
If Andrey was in charge of controls, then the obvious
question is how his expenses were approved. Any adequate internal control
process requires a separation of duties so that it takes two people to collude
in order to break the system. Put simply, if Rob Andrey was able to steal from
the AD by forging Kirby Hocutt’s signature on expense approval forms, the
controls were not adequate to begin with. The following must be held directly
accountable:
1. Kirby Hocutt
— He has direct responsibility for the AD. All of these issues were clearly
identified in the May 2006 Internal Audit report. He hired Andrey and failed to
monitor Andrey’s expenditures as was his responsibility according to the
Policies and Procedures that governed the AD. In the private sector, if a
manager fails to correct significant control issues that are identified in an
internal audit report (on his watch) and those failures lead to theft from the
company, then that manager would in almost all cases be terminated. Kirby Hocutt
should be fired.
2. The Finance Department
— If these procedures were approved by Finance, then something is rotten in
that department as well. This needs to be investigated immediately.
3. The Board of Trustees
(BOT) — If the internal control procedures are in fact stricter for the
AD than for the rest of the university, then it is the responsibility of the BOT
to get involved to ensure that controls throughout the university are adequate.
I personally brought the issue of the May 2006 Internal Audit report, the lack
of adequate procedures and follow-up, and the possibility of theft within the AD
to the BOT in a detailed memo that the BOT received in February of this year.
Individual Trustees discussed among themselves whether or not they should do
anything about the issues that I raised. As far as I can tell, they chose not
to. In the private sector, this negligence on the part of a board would not be
tolerated. It should not be tolerated in the public sector as well. If the Ohio
University BOT cannot do its job, then it is time for the Board of Regents and
the governor to intervene.
John Schaefer writes
from Hinsdale, Ill.
Read OU Bobcat fan reactions to this on the Bobcat Attack
Message Board at the following links:
and,
Below are links we've collected on this episode in
the recent history of OU's athletic department:
YourTurn: Andrey’s actions cause disgust
Published Thursday, July 19, 2007.
Letter to the Editor
I was truly disgusted to read that Robert Andrey was
stealing from the students who trusted their athletic careers to him and
Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt. I am the mother of one of the swimmers who
was forced to leave Ohio University as a result of the mismanagement of the
athletic department.
The day after the cuts were announced, Mr. Andrey called
me to respond to my numerous e-mails and tried to tell me that there was no
financial alternative for the university. It seems there was an alternative:
fire him. His salary would more than cover the cost of the men’s swimming
program, even without considering the amount of money he was stealing from them.
I just wonder how many other members of the OU
administration are padding his or her own pockets to the detriment of the
school.Karen Kazmerchak-Schick writes from
Milwaukee
Partial reproduction of a press release on OU's website
announcing Andrey's hiring in 2006. Read full article online at this
link.
"Andrey and Hauser Join
Athletics Staff
Two associate athletic
directors join Bobcats
Jan. 30, 2006
ATHENS, Ohio - Ohio University Director of
Athletics Kirby
Hocutt has announced the hiring of Robert Andrey as Associate Athletics
Director for Business and Internal Operations and Dan Hauser as Associate
Athletics Director for Marketing, Promotions and External Operations.
Andrey joins the staff after spending the last five
years at American University in Washington, D.C. as both an Assistant Athletic
Director for Business Operations (2000-02) and an Associate Athletic Director
of Business and Administrations (2002-05). His duties at American included
serving as the department's chief financial officer. He was responsible for
the athletic department's accounting, budgeting, asset management, risk
management, and revenue and expense forecasting. Andrey was also the
administrative supervisor for the Eagles' wrestling and men's golf programs.
Prior to his tenure at American, Andrey served first as
Assistant Director of Marketing, Promotions and Sales and then as Director of
Ticket Operations at Temple University from 1999-2000. He also served as the
Business and Ticket Manager at Lehigh University from 1998-99, Assistant
Director of Business Operations, Facilities and Event Management at Lafayette
College from 1997-98 and Assistant Director of the Philadelphia Big Five from
1995-97.
Andrey earned his bachelor's degree in business and
finance from Millersville University in 1991. He earned three varsity letters
in football at Millersville, helping the Marauders to three straight
Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference championships (1988-90). Andrey went on
to earn a master's degree in education, sport administration and leisure
studies from Temple in 1997..."
Interview with Robert Andrey in "The Athens
News," February 8, 2007.
Letter to "The Athens News," June 4, 2007
From what we can determine from this information, OU
forfeited $88,000 in annual payments from the NCAA by dropping these four
sports. The NCAA reportedly gives schools $22,000 annually per sport over 14 sports.
Andrey's annual salary was reported to be approximately
$75,000. News reports indicate that approximately $31,000 was stolen from
the AD.
These amounts total $194,000, $163,000 after subtracting
the $31,000 allegedly stolen.
Track and Field and Swimming and Diving could have funded
themselves for at least another two or three years on that amount alone.
Instead, OU paid a person who reportedly betrayed his
trust enough to fund both of those teams for a full year, and gave up
contributions that could have funded these teams annually ad infinitum.
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DROPPED
TEAMS
2006
Women's Lacrosse Team
Swimming
and Diving
and
Track
and Field
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