Faculty ‘not surprised’ review says Fresno State Foundation risked fraud, union says

Leadership with Fresno State’s faculty union was “not surprised” to find out the nonprofit that controls hundreds of millions of dollars for the university — including student scholarship and professor research money — employed practices that put the organization at risk of fraud, according to a CSU review.

Andrew Jones, president of the Fresno State chapter of the California Faculty Association, told The Fresno Bee on Friday that professors have been concerned for decades with how the Fresno State Foundation administers the money they secure for the university through research grants.

He said as far back as 2007, when he started working at university, faculty were complaining that they had to use their grant money for lab maintenance and clean-up instead of the foundation revenues carved out for that purpose.

“Even back then, we were asking, ‘Where’s all this money going?’” Jones said. “Now, we’re seeing there’s some real shenanigans going on with all the money that we’ve been deriving from writing grants.”

The foundation’s current executive director, Brady Crook, said in an email to The Bee that addressing the findings of the review is “now a top priority” and that the organization will publicize its plan when it is finalized.

Though it operates independently of the university as a nonprofit, the foundation manages a $250 million endowment fund of donations and investments and $65 million in government grants for Fresno State. The foundation redistributes the money to pay for research, student scholarships, employee salary support and other important initiatives at the university.

That money was at risk as the foundation’s leadership and poor financial controls increased the nonprofit’s exposure to fraud in recent years, according to California State University review of the organization released Friday. The review, requested by Fresno State President Jiménez-Sandoval, found that “the same individual” was allowed to prepare and approve multi-million-dollar wire transfers and that he had the authority to revise vendor records.

It also found the foundation’s 25-member Board of Governors included no faculty members with research administration experience. The only board member who actually worked for the university was Jiménez-Sandoval, Fresno State president since 2021.

During the fiscal year reviewed by the CSU system, the foundation’s director of financial services was Keith Kompsi. He retired last April, just months after the retirement of Debbie Adishian-Astone, who was a long-time foundation executive director and Fresno State’s chief financial officer and vice president of administration.

Kompsi did not respond to The Bee’s request for comment about faculty concerns or the report’s findings about how the foundation operated during his time as head of its financial department.

The CSU found no instances of fraud in its review, which examined operations during the 2024 fiscal year. That time period covers July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, according to Fresno State. Adishian-Astone retired from Fresno State at the end of 2024.

Jones said it’s “a big problem” that someone at the foundation had the ability to revise vendor records. The CSU report does not provide the name of the person, but says the person “was granted administrator access” within the foundation’s financial system, “creating significant opportunities for unauthorized or undetected activity.”

“With no faculty serving in any oversight capacity, we have no idea what they were doing,” Jones said.

Concerns historically ‘not well’ met by Fresno State Foundation, union says

Jones said historically complaints from faculty to the foundation have been “not well” met. He said it’s been difficult for faculty to take their concerns to the organization because high personnel turnover has made it hard to find the right person to contact.

Today, the foundation’s staff includes various accountants and research grant administrators.

Jones said the research grants to the university have been “record-breaking” in recent years. During the 2024-2025 year, Fresno State secured $78.3 million to support research, according to a university announcement.

But Jones said it appears the foundation’s distribution to the university has not kept up.

“How much money was going to the foundation, and where did it go?” Jones said.

Crook, who replaced Adishian-Astone as the foundation’s executive director, said in an email to The Bee that the organization’s plan for the future will address “how grant-generated indirect cost recovery allocations are administered.” Those are the allocations from grants that include money for lab maintenance, which Jones said faculty have historically raised as an issue of concern.

Crook added that the foundation’s board is “a volunteer body deeply committed to supporting Fresno State.” He also said the foundation recognizes the importance of engaging faculty, “whose research activity is central to the University’s mission.”

Fresno State unions to meet about Fresno State Foundation findings

Jiménez-Sandoval, Fresno State’s president, said in a statement posted online that the university and foundation have already started strengthening guardrails at the nonprofit and will seek to revise the make-up of its board “to ensure appropriate University representation.”

Jones said the many of the problems at the Foundation predated Jiménez-Sandoval, who has been “left holding the bag.” But Jones said recent news that Jiménez-Sandoval and other executive leadership across the system are receiving raises at a time “when we’re all struggling to make do with less” made revelations of mismanagement at the foundation that much harder to stomach.

Once the spring 2026 semester begins, Jones said he will look to get faculty together with members of the university’s staff union to find “what it is that we want to do as a response to this.”

Fortunato Garcia, president of Fresno State’s chapter of the CSU Employees Union, was not available for comment Monday.

Catherine Hutchinson, statewide president of the employees union, said in a statement to The Bee that the review of the foundation “raised serious red flags.”

Hutchinson said the employees union appreciates Jiménez-Sandoval’s for “initiating the scrutiny,” but he added that the union has in recent years asked for greater scrutiny of campus finances.

“We hope this is the first step to correcting structural weaknesses that make the Foundation vulnerable to mismanagement and fraud,” she said.

This story was originally published January 12, 2026 at 4:56 PM.

Erik Galicia

The Fresno Bee

Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea’s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert. Erik’s work is supported through the California Local News Fellowship program.