Image 1 of 1982 - Board of Regents Meeting Minutes

IlllIIII.I.IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlIIIIIIllIIll¤¤¤¤-------—-—-4» MINUTES OF THE M ETING OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS MURRAY STATE UNIVERSITY September 5, 1981 The Board of Regents of Murray State University met September 5, 1981, at 9:30 a.m. in the Board Room, Third Floor, Wells Hall, on the campus of the University. The following members were present: Mr. J. W. Carneal, Dr. Charles E. Howard, Mr. Mark McClure, Mr. Jere McCuiston, Mr. Bill Morgan, Mrs. Sara L. Page, Dr. Ed Settle, Mr. Steve West, Mr. Jerry Woodall, and Mr. Ron Christopher, Chairman, presiding. l None were absent. Also present were Dr. Constantine W. Curris, President, Mrs. Patsy R. Dyer, Secretary of the Board; Vice-Presidents Richard Butwell, Marshall Gordon, Jim Hall, Frank Julian; University Attorney James O. Overby; Dr. Rick Stinchfield; Mr. Don Chamberlain; Dr. Tom Posey, President of the Faculty Senate; members of the news media and visitors. Chairman Christopher called the meeting to order. The Chairman stated that Hurt, Haverstock and Jones have asked to be recognized to address the Board's obligation to them so that they may leave, reviewed the status of the Personal Service Contract submitted to the Department of Finance, and recognized Harold Hurt of Hurt, Haverstock and Jones. Mr. Hurt: In February when we were contacted by Mr. Overby on behalf of the Board, a personal service contract was completed and submitted to the Department of Finance; it then has to go to the Attorney General and then to the Governor. Both the Attorney General and the Governor's office rendered opinions that pursuant to the existing Kentucky Revised Statutes no personal service contract was needed. Therefore, they said to go ahead and perform the work and the bill could be submitted to the Department of Finance and paid. I do not know if they notified the Department of Finance of their opinion at that time. Therefore, we went ahead-and rendered the services to the I Board. We, of course, helped with the investigation and presentation of the charges, and then defended the Board in the litigation in the Calloway Circuit Court which included a few trips to Frankfort in the appellate process. After we were completed, we submitted the statement for services rendered as we had been informed was the proper way by Mr. Abramson, and it went to Frankfort. It was returned one time, then it was returned back to Frankfort. I guess you've followed this in the newspapers, but to give you a little history of what happened up there, Mr. Abramson was more or less the person who was trying to get this matter resolved. He met with both the Attorney General and the Secretary of Finance, and they thought they had reached an agreement on how to handle it. The documents were forwarded to Mr. Abramson, and he went over to the Attorney General and got a copy of the draft letter that the Secretary of Finance was requiring. The Attorney General would not sign that letter until he knew for sure that the Secretary of Finance n would honor it. So, Mr. Abramson, in order to appease the Secretary of Finance and the Attorney General, took an unsigned copy over to Secretary of Finance Atkins. Mr. Atkins said, yes, with that letter we will process the papers and sign them. Mr. Abramson then went back to the Attorney General. He signed the letter and he took it back personally to Mr. Atkins, and that's when the newspaper report came out that the statement was going to be paid. After that, there was some controversy between the Attorney General and the Secretary of Finance and there's been a change of mind at the level of the Secretary of Finance.- He has now refused to pay the statement and has sent it back. _ We feel like, of course, that we are entitled to be paid because we rendered the services pursuant to the authorization from this Board. In addition, we have done some investigation as to how other universities handle this type of matter. Do they all have personal