Western Kentucky University spent nearly $4 million more than the revenue it generated during the 2023-2024 academic year, according to university budget executives.

This information comes over two months after the Herald first inquired about where the university stood at the end of fiscal year 2024.

On Sept. 4, WKU President Timothy Caboni announced in front of the university’s Staff Senate that three university units overspent their budgets during FY24, which ran from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024, encompassing the 2023-2024 academic year.

Caboni told the senate that the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, the athletics department, and the university’s Division of Enrollment and Student Experience each overspent their budget, but did not provide any other information.

According to Renaldo Domoney, WKU assistant vice president for budget, finance and analytics, of the three units Caboni discussed, WKU Athletics overspent its budget by $2,734,321, the Division of Enrollment and Student Experience by $847,805, and the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences overspent by $534,244. These units spent 108%, 102% and 103% of their budgets, respectively.

Domoney also stated “every other unit spent less than 100% of their budget.”

The Herald began requesting information from university officials on Sept. 4 after Caboni’s remarks to the Staff Senate. For over two months, the Herald sought records, information and explanations from members of the WKU administration, yet was prevented from receivingresponsive records and giving interviews. This included three open records requests and six emails to university budget and communications personnel requesting interviews and information.

Because it is a public institution that receives taxpayer funding, WKU’s budget is a public record that the greater public is legally entitled to see under the Kentucky Open Records Act, according to Jon Fleischaker, an attorney with Kaplan, Johnson, Abate and Bird, the firm that represents the Herald through the Kentucky Press Association.

“You’re entitled to their budget, especially the budget for the year that’s ended,” Fleischaker said. “Anything that’s been approved by the Board (of Regents), you’re entitled to. So if they’ve approved a budget, you’re entitled to see that, you’re entitled to get the information as to how they operated pursuant to their budget for the last fiscal year. The public is entitled to know that.”

“The Western Kentucky University administration has never been transparent. They have done everything they can to block almost everything,” Fleischaker added. “They apparently do not believe the public has a right to know how they are operating their public business. I’m not surprised by their intransigence, it’s consistent with their behavior for the last 20, 30 years.”

The Reporting Timeline

On Sept. 4, following Caboni’s announcement of the overspending of three university units, the Herald submitted its first public records request for detailed information concerning WKU’s budget for FY24. This request, sent to WKU General Counsel Andrea Anderson and Deputy General Counsel Lindsey Carter, requested:

• WKU’s budget plan for FY24, beginning on July 1, 2023, and ending on June 30, 2024.

• WKU’s budgeted expenses for FY24, beginning on July 1, 2023, and ending on June 30, 2024.

• WKU’s budgeted revenue for FY24, beginning on July 1, 2023, and ending on June 30, 2024.

• WKU’s actual revenue for FY24, beginning on July 1, 2023, and ending on June 30, 2024.

• WKU’s actual expenses for FY24, beginning on July 1, 2023, and ending on June 30, 2024.

• WKU’s budgeted salary information for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Under the Kentucky Open Records Act, public officials are given five business days to respond to public records requests. Carter responded to the Herald’s initial request on Sept. 9. The response included already public information for WKU’s budget plan for the first three points.

The response, however, did not include information on the university’s actual revenue and expenses for FY24.

“For the two portions of your request seeking ‘actuals’ for fiscal year 2024, beginning on July 1, 2023, and ending on June 30, 2024, please be advised that these documents are still in draft form and are not yet final,” Carter wrote. “Records that are preliminary drafts are exempted from disclosure pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(i). That said, we expect these documents to be finalized in early October, and once final, they are subject to the Open Records Act. Please check back in October for this one.”

As instructed, the Herald filed a follow-up request on Oct. 9 for the university’s actual budget and expenses for 2024. This request asked for:

• WKU’s actual revenue for FY24, beginning on July 1, 2023 and ending on June 20, 2024.
• WKU’s actual expenses for FY24, beginning on July 1, 2023, and ending on June 30, 2024.
• WKU’s budgeted salary information for the 2024-2025 academic year in a sortable, digital format to include all part-time and full-time faculty and staff.

Additional salary information was requested to match a previous Herald request for the same sortable information received for the 2022-2023 academic year.

In response to this request, on Oct. 15, the Herald was provided with materials for that week’s Board of Regents meeting. The 316-page Finance and Budget Committee document included an independent auditor’s report conducted by Forvis Mazars. The report, which was approved by the Board of Regents, reviewed business activity of the university. It did not provide a detailed breakdown of the university’s actual revenues and expenditures by department and division.

Following the receipt of the Board of Regents materials, the Herald sent an email to Jace Lux, WKU university spokesperson, requesting information on “the WKU areas that overspent their budget in the past year, specifically by division, college, and department within each division.” In response, Lux provided the Herald with a table on Oct. 17 with information provided by Domoney.

The provided table stated that the three areas Caboni told the Staff Senate overspent – athletics, the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences and enrollment and student experience – spent 105%, 103% and 102% of their budgets, respectively. The information did not provide enough context and detail to determine further specifics, including whether WKU overspent its budget.

After receiving this information, the Herald sought an interview with Domoney to provide clarification, including about the table itself, as well as the methods used to determine the percentages of overspending. Upon making this request, the Herald received an email response from Lux:

“University administrators and staff members in the division of Strategy, Operations and Finance are committed to open and transparent budget conversations and have frequently discussed the FY24 budget in public meetings and conversations with media during the last fifteen months. There is no additional information to share that hasn’t already been discussed.

“University officials have turned their attention solely toward this current year’s budget, which took effect nearly four months ago. The university’s financial position so far this fiscal year is encouraging, particularly the increase in net tuition revenue. Compared to this point in the previous fiscal year, our net tuition revenue has increased by $3.2 million, or 5.2%.”

The Herald then requested separate interviews with Susan Howarth, executive vice president for strategy, operations and finance, and Domoney on Oct. 23.

The following day, Howarth responded in an email, writing in part:

“…​​ as we are nearing the half way point in the FY 25 year and beginning the early stages of developing the FY 26 budget, I just don’t have openings in my schedule for interviews on the FY 24 budget. Renaldo is also very busy as he just finished up the FY 24 audit and is also working on multiple other projects. I will ask him to pull together some information to help answer your questions. Given our busy schedules, it will be several weeks before he gets back in touch.”

Following this email response, the Herald submitted another, more specific open records request on Oct. 24, which asked for:

• WKU’s detailed actual budget revenues per university unit – division, college, department, office, etc. – across the entire university for FY24, beginning on July 1, 2023 and ending on June 30, 2023.
• WKU’s detailed actual budget expenditures per university unit – division, college, department, office, etc. – across the entire university for FY24, beginning on July 1, 2023 and ending on June 30, 2024.

On Oct. 31, the Herald received a response from Carter that appeared to provide revenue and expenditure numbers yet provided no context as to what these numbers represented. The document appeared to show that many university units overspent revenues by millions of dollars each, prompting more questions.

Upon receipt of the document from Carter, the Herald reached out again to Howarth, Domoney and Lux to request a sit-down interview to have the document explained. Lux responded to the request on Nov. 4, writing:

“You have already submitted a handful of questions for which I believe Susan and Renaldo are drafting answers. If you have remaining questions, please submit them ASAP via email. Given your print deadline, it may not be feasible to answer all of them by tomorrow, but they will try.”

The Herald sent questions for Howarth and Domoney 49 minutes later. Domoney responded with detailed budget information at 8:45 a.m. on Nov. 5.

Among the information provided, Domoney wrote that the document provided by Carter on Oct. 31 “does not necessarily reflect expenditure budgets for each university division and unit.”

Domoney’s response also showed that nine of the 12 budget areas he provided information for were given expenditure authority that was greater than the money allocated in the original budget for FY24. The percentages of the budgets Domoney provided were calculated using the increased expenditure authority, not the original budgeted allocations to each unit.

What questions remain?

Following the two-month process to receive answers to questions related to the university’s FY24 budget, some questions remain which the Herald is working to answer:

• What specifically caused athletics, enrollment and student experience and the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences to overspend their budget?
• When and why did units get increased expenditure authority? Where did the additional money come from? How did the three overspending units still overspend this already increased expenditure authority?
• Caboni has said on multiple occasions that overspending units will have to make up for their spending. What will this look like for the three units that overspent in FY24?
• Will areas of the university that stayed within their budgets be required to cut spending to offset the three areas’ deficits?

Editor-in-Chief Price Wilborn can be reached at edwin.wilborn835@topper. wku.edu. Follow him on X @pricewilborn.