Kansas State U. Audit Finds Possible Financial Shenanigans

An audit released Friday by the Kansas Board of Regents has found thousands of dollars worth of payments to companies owned by current and former university officials, The Kansas City Star reported. The officials include Bill Snyder, the football coach; Tim Weiser, a former athletics director; and Robert S. Krause, a former vice president for institutional advancement and former athletics director.

The 34-page audit, which describes other poor accounting and possible IRS problems for the university, is part of an exit review by the Board of Regents of Kansas State’s former president, Jon Wefald, who left this year.

The audit, prepared by the firm Grant Thornton, does not call the accounting practices illegal, and it praises Mr. Wefald for, among other things, increasing enrollment and academic excellence at the university.

The report describes Mr. Krause as a “visionary” active in Kansas State’s economic development but goes on to say that “the concentration of influence by President Wefald through his aggregation of reporting and oversight duties in Mr. Krause has led to a blurring of the lines” between some of the entities reviewed, which included the university’s foundation, the alumni association, a golf-course management group, and the athletics department. —Heidi Landecker