U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison visited Angelo State University on Thursday to get a firsthand report on the Center for Security Studies, one of the projects she helped launch.Taxpayer in Texas posted the following on this blog last year:
Hutchison, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was able to help get Department of Defense grants of $2.8 million and $3 million during the past three years to launch the center.
Federal Earmarks are the sole source of funding for the CSS. So now ASU picks up the tab for what Rallo created with the help of Uncle Sam to the tune of $1.7 million in new salaries alone (not including benefits).Back to Senator Hutchison: "I am going to try to get one more year (of funding)," she said in a news conference. "I'm going to try to see if I can help at least in that year, so they can be able to sustain what has been started."
Here's the breakdown:
-Director & Deputy: $220,000
-8 new Professors: approx $650,000 (several are so new that they are not in the public salary database; three who are in the database are getting 91K, 71K, and 70K)
-6 new support staff positions: $296,849
Grand Total: $1.169 million each and every year.
Did Taxpayer in Texas meet with Senator Hutchison today? If so, I'd love to have been an insect shaped drone on the wall.
Update 2-28-12: ASU's CSS added a new online Master's Degree which can be achieved in 18 months. I wonder how many aspects of America's Declaration of Independence America's security behemoth tramples on daily?
6 comments:
Each of those positions were listed with the clause along the lines of "as long as federal funding is provided", so that should be ASU's escape hatch to get rid of these overpaid people and this failing program. But no! Instead it takes on this enormous budget for CSS and now they are permanent ASU employees, in a program that is going no where. All during the worst budget era we have seen. It's always funny to me how people with the title "Dr." before their name seem to have so little common sense.....
CSS is providing online degrees already offered for years by established institutions around the country. It was a bad idea from the beginning but that's what happens when you put military-minded people in charge instead of education-minded people.
Wish I would have known she was there - not that I would have been allowed an audience with her. Politicians don't want to hear the truth.
And to Anonymous...
Yes, that clause was in there but since the overpaid people are Dr. Rallo's retired military cronies and Barbara Rallo's lifelong friend, he was most certainly not about to let them go. After all the CSS is Dr. Rallo's legacy.
(Just ask Dr. Blose who reportedly suggested to Dr. Rallo that the CSS was a losing proposition - right before he was "invited" to step down and return to teaching).
ASU is doubling down on CSS with an online Masters in 18 months!
http://www.angelo.edu/content/news/1288-asu-adds-security-studies-degree-programs
Well let's hope they do a better job screening students for this degree. Apparently, so desperate for student enrollment, they didn't bother to verify ID's (a critical "security" measure especially when dealing with distance students who never actually set foot on campus). As a result, some individuals made multiple fraudulent applications for financial aid - and would have succeeded if not for the sharp eye of the ID card office personnel.
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