Sac State exposes all failures in the Capital Public Radio debacle but their own | Opinion
When an employee repeatedly seeks to be reimbursed for pet expenses, and when the employer has neither cats nor dogs, that should raise a red flag in the finance department.
When the same employee spends thousands of dollars flying to Dubai, Scotland and Fiji on the company credit card, that should set off a five-alarm firestorm of questions.
But at Capital Public Radio and its parent, Sacramento State, half a million dollars worth of questionable spending between 2017 and 2022, funded by its faithful listeners, went unchallenged in real-time. It was business as usual, for years.
The employee was former general manager Jun Reina. He now faces a lawsuit by the station and a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department investigation.
But the fundamental issue here is bigger than anything Reina did. The public has a right to know why the former leaders of Capital Public Radio and departed Sacramento State leaders were so careless with public money. Where were the financial controls at CapRadio and Sac State and why did they fail miserably?
Two audits, one by the California State University system and one led by Sacramento State, have told us what Reina did but have not told us why Cap Radio and Sac State failed to stop his excessive spending and other highly questionable moves made by CapRadio leaders.
The fallout from the financial mismanagement at CapRadio has been extensive. Last August, the station laid off 12 percent of its workforce. CapRadio owed its vendors $3.3 million in unpaid bills from the previous two fiscal years. The station leased two buildings downtown partially owned by a developer, Bay Miry, whose spouse was on the CapRadio board. The station entered into $1.1 million in lease agreements for studio equipment and furniture. Sac State floated an $8 million loan to the station and it wasn’t long before CapRadio fell behind in its payments.
Sacramento State President Luke Wood inherited this mess when he started on the job in the summer of 2023.
Initially, Wood was admirably candid about past failures at Sac State that were effectively dumped in his lap.
“What happened is total financial mismanagement,” Wood told The Bee last October.
But when the university released portions of what was billed as a comprehensive, “forensic” audit of CapRadio’s finances last August, it omitted too many important details. While it stated that more than half a million dollars in questionable spending was unearthed, the university refused to divulge how that money was spent, who was involved and who also engaged in other alleged conflicts of interest between the station and members of its Board of Directors, who have since departed.
An attorney representing The Bee repeatedly alerted the university it was violating the state public record laws by obfuscating financial transactions and other processes undertaken by a public university and one CapRadio, one of its auxiliary organizations.
Sacramento State only released much of the information in the August audit to the Bee on Jan. 3.
The opulent spending by Reina on the radio station’s credit card seems impossible to believe for any employee of a modern American workplace. How can someone working at a public university get away with spending $17,000 on golf memberships? Or $27,000 in restaurants? About $145,000 in travel? A property tax bill? And eight runs to Petco?
Other spending went to upgrade Reina’s home in West Sacramento. It happens to now be up for sale. The asking price of the 4,498 square-foot home, with five bedrooms and five bathrooms, is $1.37 million. The staged photographs of homes for sale are always flattering, but this place looks very nicely upgraded.
The window for Reina to quietly sell his home and pocket the proceeds may have closed. CapRadio on Thursday filed a lien on the property as part of its pursuit of compensation. With the Sheriff’s investigation still ongoing, Reina, who has repeatedly declined to comment to The Bee, is far from being out of the proverbial woods. And Sac State is still far from being as transparent as it should be.
The audits by Sac State and the CSU audits seem conveniently narrow as are their public statements.
“Under President Wood, we have changed our policy to now rotate auditing firms as well as create an auxiliary committee that meets regularly to discuss CapRadio financials,” the university said.
“The purpose of the forensic exam was to address the most pressing concerns ... within a manageable timeline and cost, allowing for timely corrective action. As we have shared before, Sacramento State has significantly increased its oversight of CapRadio’s fiscal activities in comparison with the previous decade and this will continue to ensure sustained corrections and continuous improvements.”
This answer skirts Sac State’s failings in the CapRadio debacle. It gives the impression that Wood, and California State University President Mildred Garcia, care about the failures of everyone except the leaders at Sacramento State charged with providing oversight of CapRadio.
Reina may have done wrong. But the structural problems that existed between Capital Public Radio and Sacramento State go much, much deeper than just one person. The limited investigation by Sacramento State fails to rise to the level of anything that can be called a forensic audit. This is too big for Sacramento State and the CSU to try to keep sweeping under the rug. Stay tuned.