Documents show Alcorn State spent almost $89,000 on furniture and renovations at the presidential house of Dr. M. Christopher Brown II—all without seeking bids as required under state law.
But by his third year on the job, complaints began to surface about money spent on lavish upgrades to the president’s residence and the relationship between a Brown aide and a production company that staged campus concerts, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request. Amid an investigation of the spending by the board that oversees the university, Brown and two others resigned in December.
The probe and resignations come at a time when Alcorn and other HBCUs are working to recover from the recession. Mississippi’s three HBCUs fought off a proposal by former Gov. Haley Barbour to merge them, and overall higher education spending in Mississippi has only begun to recover from sharp cuts.
“I’m sick about it because it’s going to impact recruiting, support from the Legislature, everything,” said Higher Education Commissioner Hank Bounds, who oversees the state’s public universities.
Hundreds of pages of invoices, checks, emails and other correspondence reviewed by the AP show Alcorn spent almost $89,000 on furniture and renovations at the president’s house—all without seeking bids as required under state law. The documents also show that the production company associated with Brown’s aide at the university collected $85,000 in fees as part of the money Alcorn paid it. And an auditor says the school spent more than $67,000 in bond money on projects that weren’t allowed in the lending agreement.
The documents reveal for the first time details of the spending that led to Brown’s departure, which were known only among a select group of students, faculty and alumni. When Brown resigned, Bounds would only say it was related to an investigation into possible purchasing violations.
Students interviewed Wednesday on campus said they’d only heard rumors about why Brown left.
