September 25, 2013

Evan S. Dobelle, President Westfield State University 577 Western Avenue Westfield, Massachusetts 01086

Dear President Dobelle: I appreciated the opportunity to meet with you and your legal counsel on Friday. You raised a number of questions about the OConnor and Drew (O&D) Report. At the same time, you offered no specifics to refute the multiple findings in the Report. During our meeting, you reiterated your position that you do not intend to respond to the O&D Report, citing procedural issues, and restating your opinion that the report was unprofessional. You further suggested that a separate and different review was warranted. We disagree. While I understand that you do not agree with the way in with the O&D Report was commissioned, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) concluded that the O&D Report is accurate and well-supported. We have no reason to doubt the OIGs September 19, 2013 endorsement of the O&D findings. Therefore, we do not believe it is necessary or appropriate to set aside the report or ignore its findings. In addition, your refusal to offer any substantive responses to any of the findings made to date continues to heighten our concerns. We are formally requesting that you address the findings in the O&D Report. If you choose not to, we will have no choice but to assume that these very serious findings are true and proceed accordingly. Your response to the OIG letter and to the O&D Report and its attachments needs to be complete and factual. For example, please provide detailed information on the various trips, dinners, and events identified in the O&D Report, indicating the purpose of each, the participants, and the relationship of the participants to Westfield State University (WSU). We also ask that you respond to the three findings expressly confirmed in the OIG letter of September 19th, specifically that: You, and others at WSU, used credit cards for personal expenditures, in violation of WSU policy; Westfield State Foundation funds were used indiscriminately with little or no consideration for the mission or financial viability of the Foundation; and Various expenses identified in the O&D Report appear to be in violation of WSUs standard of reasonable and not excessive for business-related expenses.

In addition, the following questions remain: As stated in its letter of September 19th, the OIG has determined that in 2010 the Foundation ran an operating deficit caused in part by your expenditures and spending undertaken at your direction. As a result, WSU was forced to transfer more than $400,000 to the Foundation, despite the fact that the Foundations mission is to support WSU. When we met on Friday, you dismissed this finding, blaming the administrators at the Foundation for mismanagement and blaming the WSU Trustees for allegedly authorizing the $400,000 transferessentially blaming everyone but yourself. Moreover, you failed to address the real substance behind the findings, including that: 1) due to your expenditures and spending undertaken at your direction, Foundation resources were drained resulting in an operating deficit; and 2) WSU fundingstate fundingwas transferred under your watch as President of WSU to the Foundation, a nonprofit public charity, to cover a deficit that you allegedly caused. Please respond to the OIGs additional findings of misconduct regarding WSUs $400,000 transfer to the Foundation. In your August 29, 2013 response to the Westfield Trustees you criticize the O&D Report as being devoid of any analysis of the return on investment (ROI) from the expenses identified and you claim that such an analysis would have revealed that these expenditures have generated significant dividends. What are these significant dividends? Please provide a fully documented and supported ROI analysis on all expenses identified in both of the O&D Reports regarding WSU and Foundation spending, respectively. In your August 29, 2013, response to the Westfield Trustees you state that in no small measure due to the travel and fundraising I have undertaken with various University representatives, faculty and students in the few years since I began this job, we have accomplished game-changing success. In support, you state that you have overhauled your international exchange program, have welcomed 123 international students from over 50 countries around the globe, and have realized over $3 million and recurring revenue of approximately $1.2 million. In its letter of September 19th, the OIG disputes your facts, stating that of the 123 international students you reference, the vast majority consists of Massachusetts residents who pay in-state tuition, but are not United States citizens. The OIG further disputes your calculations on recurring revenue realized. When we raised the OIG findings during our meeting on Friday, your responses were dismissive. Please submit data in support of your assertions and in response to the OIG findings. In your letter of August 29, 2013, and during our meeting on Friday, you referenced a November 28, 2011, report by WSU counsel. Please provide us with a copy of that report. During our meeting on Friday, we asked you about certain trips that you made to San Francisco, including the January 2012 and the July 2012 trips referenced in the O&D Report. Both of these trips were charged to University credit cards, although part of the July 2012 trip was subsequently reclassified as personal.

Your responses were not satisfactory. Please provide us with a ROI (or cost benefit analysis as described in the O&D Report) for both of these trips, and please submit documentation supporting the nature and purpose of these trips. When we met on Friday, we asked you to respond to new allegations raised in the September 20, 2013 Boston Globe article regarding your May 2013 fundraising trip to San Francisco. At that time, you dismissed our questions, claiming that you had not read the Globe and criticizing the medias attention to these matters. Among other things, the Globe article raises questions about your activity during a May 2013 trip to San Francisco, and alleges that your account of your activity during that trip, as you reported to the WSU board, differs not only from the accounts of the foundations that you allegedly visited, but also from staff who accompanied you on that trip. How do you respond to this? In addition, both the Boston Globe article and the O&D Report reference an inordinate number of trips to San Franciscoat least 15 since 2008--purportedly for WSU business. Please explain this unusual focus on San Francisco. Was there any non-business related motivation for spending so much time and University resources in San Francisco? In addition, please describe and document the nature and purpose of each of your business trips to San Francisco, and please provide us with a ROI analysis for each trip. A review of your payroll records indicates that during at least one of your San Francisco trips (e.g., Memorial Day weekend 2011) you used 15 hours of professional leave. In addition, between February 10, 2013, and March 23, 2013, you again used 60 hours of professional leave. Please explain what this professional leave was for and whether it was pre-approved by the WSU board. In addition, in January 2011 and, again, in late-December 2012/early-January 2013, you used 37.7 hours of leave with pay. Please explain what this 75.4 hours of leave with pay was for and whether it was pre-approved by the WSU board. Since you have had the O&D Report for several months and have had ample time to gather information about these matters, please provide a response by close of business on Thursday, October 3, 2013. In the absence of a satisfactory response, we will assume that the findings in the O&D report and the OIG letter are true and we will take appropriate action at that time. Please be advised that since all of these issues speak to the administration of state funding, this raises valid questions regarding the appropriateness of WSUs ability to administer not only past, but also future state funding. Therefore I have initiated a review of potential future WSU allocations and grant disbursements in this context, including a review of future capital expenditures. Sincerely,

Richard M. Freeland Commissioner

cc:

Matthew H. Malone, Secretary of Education Charles F. Desmond, Chairman, Board of Higher Education Board of Higher Education Members Westfield State University Board of Trustees