Fresno State Foundation defiant as CSU demands change. ‘What are they going to do if we don’t?’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Leaders criticize CSU-ordered board term limits and direction to add students and faculty.
- A CSU review found the foundation faced heightened risk of fraud and misstatement in 2024.
- The foundation has implemented 21 of 46 CSU-required governance changes and posts updates.
During defensive speeches Tuesday afternoon, the Fresno State Foundation’s leadership suggested it’s been treated unfairly since January, when the California State University system found its governance style had put the foundation at serious financial risk.
Leaders of the foundation, a nonprofit that manages $315 million in grants and donations for Fresno State, touted their accomplishments and clapped for each other throughout the nearly two-hour meeting, the final one of the academic year. They expressed feeling unappreciated by the state and pointed to a 20-year record of clean external audits.
Some questioned whether they have to obey the CSU Chancellor’s Office, which has ordered them to implement term limits on their volunteer board and add student and faculty representation as part of a 46-point improvement plan. Board members have delayed and resisted those two changes and argue that they know what works for Fresno better than CSU bureaucrats.
“This matter of telling accomplished people around this room that, ‘You don’t count, somebody else made a decision, and you will abide by that decision,’ I think that’s a little bit over the top,” George Soares, the foundation’s governance committee chair, said during the meeting.
Like several of his board colleagues since January, Soares declined an interview with The Fresno Bee after the meeting. It was unclear if Soares believes the CSU’s findings about the foundation are false and whether the findings warranted a board leadership shake-up.
The CSU’s review, which examined operations over the 2024 fiscal year, determined the organization was exposed to a heightened risk of fraud and financial misstatement, though no actual fraud was identified. To blame for the risk, according to the report, were weakened financial controls and oversight from a board with little university representation and leadership turnover. (Some members have served for decades.)
Tensions and emotions ran high at Tuesday’s meeting because that day was the foundation’s self-imposed deadline to act on the CSU’s requirements that the board restructure itself and implement term limits. The board members decided to request an extension from the CSU, but they also criticized the orders and said they want to see final term limit guidance from the state before making decisions.
They made it clear they disagree with a decision by Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval not to invite several long-time members whose terms ended that day back for more board service. Soares questioned what Fresno State is doing about looming agricultural job losses caused by water restrictions and where the CSU was during the 2023 flooding in Corcoran.
“Some of you were there,” he told his board colleagues, “but the system wasn’t there.”
Foundation board questions what CSU will do if they defy it
The foundation has completed 21 of the 46 changes required by the CSU and is working on several others. It provides updates on its webpage.
Leaders on Tuesday said they were concerned the plan to remake the board will cause a quick loss of institutional knowledge.
Soares said he is not opposed to adding students and faculty to the board, which is currently composed of the university’s president and community members. But he said the board’s legal counsel has determined making the change as ordered by the CSU would cause the foundation to waive rights established by Title V of the California Code of Regulations. The law allows approved non-student auxiliary organizations that were operating on April 1, 1969, to keep the board composition they had at that time.
“They (the CSU) say, ‘We mandate it, and you will do it,’’ Soares said. “The issue is there needs to be analysis of the law to see what we’re giving up for Fresno State.”
Board members also noted the CSU’s term limit guidance is still a draft and said it’s certain to be changed over time.
Claude Laval III, one of the board members whose terms ended Tuesday, suggested there’s little sense in stressing over compliance with something “we know is going to be changed instantly.”
“What are they going to do if we don’t?,” he said, drawing laughs from the rest of the board. “Is there going to be a force of nature that attacks us?”
Fresno State Foundation leader says group has endured ‘nonsense’
Soares said his “ranting” during Tuesday’s board meeting was the result of “months of frustration.”
“This nonsense that we’ve been put through in the last six months is a negative for this university,” he said.
He described the foundation’s leaders as having endured “unfounded accusations” from the CSU and said the state has never called them to talk about term limits.
“What would they do without auxiliary?” he said. “I don’t think this system fully appreciates a foundation board.”
Soares also took aim at Fresno State, questioning what the university is doing about the job losses the region is facing because of state water restrictions’ impacts on farming.
He told a story about how a CSU president and the system once planned to sell a university farm, and he helped rally students to stop the sale.
“The farm is still there,” Soares said. “Something that couldn’t be done was done.”
Soares then connected the saving of the farm to the idea that the foundation does not have to comply with the CSU’s orders.
“I’ve heard enough in the last six months from people around this table, in part, that say, ‘If the system says it, you got to do it,’ ” Soares said. “If I would have bought into that many years ago, that university would not have a farm today.”
