Sacramento State is raising suspicion by keeping CapRadio audit details a strange secret | Opinion
As the owners of Capital Public Radio, Sacramento State and its leadership are some of the most important news managers in town. Yet as they refuse to release virtually any detailed information about a recent audit that has ensnared unnamed executives and board members, Sac State is behaving like a secretive corporation in crisis communications mode.
Rather than giving CapRadio listeners as much information as legally possible, Sacramento State is opting to do precisely the opposite. Capital Public Radio depends on listeners and their donations to exist, but Sacramento State is keeping that loyal audience in the dark about hundreds of thousands of questionable credit card expenses along with board members’ potential financial conflicts of interest.
At issue is what was supposed to be the definitive, deep-dive audit into what went wrong with CapRadio’s finances in recent years as expensive plans to move the station to downtown offices fizzled in a fiscal implosion. The scant information that the university has released creates more questions than answers. Instead of putting this unfortunate chapter behind it, Sacramento State’s ill-advised pursuit of secrecy threatens to keep a dark cloud over this vital news outlet indefinitely.
An initial review of the station last year by auditors of the California State University system found the station in financial shambles and unable to meet its financial obligations. That prompted the university to take direct control of station operations and finances — and spurred a mass resignation from CapRadio’s board of directors.
As part of its effort to right the ship, Sacramento State commissioned this deeper, “forensic” audit to thoroughly review finances and compliance with spending procedures. The station and listeners have been waiting months to learn what actually happened and why. But the wait continues.
The audit by CliftonLarsonAllen identified nearly $770,000 in credit card spending — including at least $460,800 linked to an individual — without supporting documents or “evidence of expense reports and/or receipts.” It also found the radio station bought $22,000 in furniture from a board member’s furniture company and leased downtown office space partly owned by another board member’s spouse.
But when it came to the identity of the board members and specifics about hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable spending, the audit was utterly silent. All key attachments were stripped from the public version of the audit.
The Sacramento Bee promptly requested what are normally public records — public spending by a public entity with public funds. In response, Sacramento State refused to provide a single page from credit card statements or the identity of any manager or board member mentioned anonymously in the inquiry.
According to Sacramento State, CapRadio listeners are not entitled to know the identity of a board member who may have had a financial conflict of interest with the station. Why? The “individual right of privacy under Article 1, Section 1 of the California Constitution,” Sacramento State said in its response. Never mind the California Public Records Act or the listeners’ right to know. The board member’s right to remain unidentified is more important.
What kind of news executive would ever possibly think like that?
In refusing to provide details about the questionable credit card spending, the university cited an exemption for pending law enforcement investigations. But this excuse, frankly, doesn’t hold water.
The Bee had already figured out who the board members in question were. And CapRadio had defied its parent, the university, and revealed the identity of the employee in question. It’s former general manager Jun Reina. The audit had already shown that the unnamed Reina was intimately familiar with all the credit card expenses in question in the audit. The interests of justice are in no way advanced by the university’s misguided attempt at keeping listeners and the public in the dark.
Sometimes government officials wish there were a way to hide information from the public simply because it is embarrassing. But there is no legal reason to withhold such information. The government’s duty is precisely the opposite.
For a new university president who expends tremendous effort presenting a positive public face, Luke Wood’s behavior here is out of character. Shrouding CapRadio’s financial mess in secrecy is decreasing public confidence in the university’s management of the station. And it is increasing suspicion of what Sacramento State is trying to hide, and why.
Pretending that board members have a right to privacy when they screw up is beyond the pale. And so is refusing to provide any specifics about dubious spending.
This audit, as they say in the news business, should have been a one-day story, complete with all the information Sacramento State could legally disclose about CapRadio. Now the story is not about CapRadio. It is about Luke Wood and Sacramento State and their secretive management of a public radio station. The story isn’t going away until listeners know everything that happened. Sacramento State is making a mockery of its own radio station’s actual mission.