A recent internal investigation into USM’s Athletic Department revealed 35 work-study students committed fraud by lying about how many hours they’ve worked. The University required the students to pay restitution, serve a term of community service and for those who are athletes this year to serve a suspension from 10 to 30 percent of their games. Seven staff members are also being disciplined for failure to properly monitor students’ hours.
“It’s a bad mark on the program, but I hope people take it for what it is,” said Al Bean, director of intercollegiate athletics and head of the investigation.
No one knows exactly how long the fraud had been going on, but Bean said definitely through the spring semester and possibly into the fall.
Bean said students managed to successfully steal hours because of the large number of students working in the Athletics Department and the recent hiring of new staff who were not properly monitoring students’ time cards.
“In reality, some staff were not being as diligent as they should be,” Bean said. He said the staff had come to trust that students were being honest about their hours. “Sometimes when you do that you can get yourself in trouble.”
According to Bean, there were also some cases where a staff member offered students double the hours worked in exchange for them working a shift the staff was having a hard time covering. Bean said the staff member “just wasn’t aware that it couldn’t be done.” He also said he believed it only accounted for a small number of the total hours falsely reported.
According to Bean, on April 29 a student overheard two work-study students in the Athletics Department discussing inflating their hours. The student reported the conversation to the Financial Aid office, which contacted Bean.
The Athletics Department began an immediate review of all their work-study students. The investigation took the entire summer and part of the fall semester. Students’ time cards were matched against their schedules. Bean said one of the things he looked for were students claiming work hours during times they had class. Of the 175 students the department employs, 139 were interviewed regarding their time cards. Of the 35 students who were inflating their hours, 30 were athletes.
According to Bob Caswell, director of USM Media and Community Relations, the fraud resulted in a $8,000 loss.
“The amount of money was almost irrelevant.” Caswell said it is more an issue of ethics. “We did not live up to those ethical standards in this particular instance.”
“I was disappointed to learn about this problem,” said Richard Pattenaude, president of USM, “Our student athletes have always been good ambassadors for the University.” Pattenaude said he was pleased with the honest and efficient manner with which the investigation has been handled. “You only have one choice: deal with it straight up, tell the truth and people will have to take their lumps.”
When questioned about work-study monitoring, he responded “Many systems of information gathering are built on trust and we trusted folks to behave properly.”
Pattenaude said he didn’t feel there was evidence the University would need to do a review of all work-study students. He did say the University has been tightening up monitoring of work-study hours.
Bean said the Athletics Department has implemented new policies to prevent any further fraudulent reporting. Bean said the new policies are aimed at “Making absolutely sure people understand the monitoring process is a critical one.” In addition to developing new manuals for the staff and students, training is required as well. Bean said he made it clear students caught cheating will be fired.
Bean refused to comment on what discipline the staff members faced.
“The University does not condone cheating or fraud. Anytime we uncover something wrong we will address it directly and swiftly,” said Pattenaude.