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FAMU Admonishes Hardee for Misuse of Time

Staff Writer, The FAMUAN

Published: Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Updated: Friday, September 2, 2011 15:09

THardee

Theresa Hardee, FAMU CFO

Florida A&M President James Ammons recently ordered that Chief Financial Officer Teresa Hardee lose nearly one week in vacation time, approximately 34 hours, for her alleged misuse of work time to do graduate coursework.

Ammons' August 5 decision followed an investigation by the university general counsel who recommended Hardee be punished for allegedly trying to do graduate work on university time. In a letter to Karl White, chair of the FAMU Board of Trustees Audit Committee, General Counsel Avery McKnight recommended that Hardee's annual leave be reduced by 58.5 hours, and she be suspended without pay for three days. 

Michael Boone, former director of business process reengineering and Hardee's then-fiance, was also under investigation and admitted to "utilizing FAMU work-time related to Ms. Hardee's coursework at UPenn." His position was terminated as a result of the loss of stimulus dollars, effective June 30, 2011.

Hardee has been FAMU CFO for more than four years after working at North Carolina Central University as an internal auditor. As CFO, Hardee has been working toward receiving her executive doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, which required her to make trips to the campus to take classes. The classes were from Thursday to Saturday and she was given permission to leave the university to attend them.

 

 Hardee denies any wrongdoing. "No, I do not think I did anything wrong; however, some additional context is necessary to respond to this question," Hardee said in an email response to questions from the Famuan. "My position is such that I have responsibilities that require me to routinely work nights and weekends. I have responsibilities that require me to be on call virtually 24 hours a day."
 
She estimated that she has  worked more than 4,000 hours in excess of the standard 40-hour work week since coming to FAMU in 2007. "This adjustment in time that I was asked to take would amount to less than one percent of the excess hours that I have already worked," she wrote. "The fact that I did not see the need to take annual leave for the days that I traveled to Pennsylvania to attend class the next day was because I was in fact working on FAMU business even while working from home on the Wednesdays in question."

In an emailed statement to this newspaper, Ammons defended decision, calling Hardee and "outstanding administrator who has provided strong leadership in her division." "She remains an outstanding member of my leadership team," Ammons said. I believe the non-disciplinary employment action taken against Ms. Hardee was appropriate given the nature of what occurred."

Anonymous accusations were made to the Office of the General Counsel in April after discrepancies were discovered in the time she was away for her classes. The accusation states that the time away from FAMU to travel to the University of Pennsylvania did not match the amount of time Hardee was approved to take leave. One particular area of interest in the investigation was the work from home status she used on her Wednesday travel days.

For more information, see Wednesday's edition of The Famuan.

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11 comments

Natalie P
Sat Sep 3 2011 22:18
Sorry for the misspelled words, but I had so much to say because this is plain ignorance and most of the messy people that I have witnessed should be role models for young individuals like myself, but instead, they are old enough to be my parent or grandparent, and rather run good talent away because of change.

Please know, change is coming whether it's under Dr. Ammons leadership or not. So, get on board now, because it is not fun when it's forced on you, and you have no input in the decisions that will be made. Recognize the overall plans that have been set out for FLORIDA and stop the madness!

Natalie P
Sat Sep 3 2011 22:07
It is amzaing how those who post comments won't tell who they are, especially, if they are truly a FAMUan who truly cares about the well being of the university. I have watched FAMU employees, especially those we considered in a "click", do nothing but sit, complain, and delegate, but at the end of the day make more than any state employees wihtin their fields.

Please understand, at the end of the day, these accusations are started because the ones that suppose to love FAMU see the changes occurring. They see where they will be held accountable, and instead of working as a team to achieve the goal that Dr. Ammons continuously mentions during all of the President Forums, that most just use as an out to not work, they rather tear the university down.

Please know, when Dr. Ammons was given his job, he was given his job to follow the path that FAMU forefathers paved for African American Students. He was not put into the position, to please those that are part of the click, and especially those that have sat in positions over multiple years,and still afraid of advanced technology and up-to-date processes to pave the way for the intelligent students, faculty, and staff that are ready for the change.

Some will be mad about what I am stating and some will appeciate it. But, I think some of the previous comments should be restated to say the such. The investigation on VP, should bring other investigations, such as desk audits. BOT should request that desk audits are done for all, especially managers. This will then bring question to those who are suppose to be working a full 1.00 FTE. In addition, BOT should investigate those individuals who are sitting in departments going to school and suppose to be getting a degree for an area that doesn't relate to the job function, therefore, there is no purpose to FAMU to further there degree, per the tuition waiver form that is being filled out. BOT should investigate when managers try to hold individuals accountable, document there issues, and then go through the proper HR procedures when letting those individuals go, instead of the General Counsel Office fighting on behalf of the University, they settle; therefore causing the University to pay an amount that could benefit the University in numerous ways, in addition to causing a ripple affect with other individuals who decide to sue because they know the University is going to settle.

Please know some of these comments are being made because they are wanting for the University community to come together and make FAMU the HBCU that the best students would like to attend. While others, like a mess, and have been allowed to sit, receive a check, and try to destroy the legacy of FAMU because they are selfish, and scared that change will show they are sitting in the wrong position and/or lazy and just don't want to work.

As a former employee, I plead that you guys stop the mess, keep your business to yourself, especially when you know when working at FAMU, and you are really a worker, and care about the University you work 60+ hours a week, with no problem, and you know this includes Saturday's and Sunday's. Stop the bickering and turn that negative energy to positive energy, life is too short. And always remember, we all have family, and we care about how we and are family members are treated. So, when you do wrong to others for devilish reasons, wrong doings can affect you and your family members double.

Therefore, turn your attention on the students, and what the students need, so that you can have The Famuan write about positive things that the University is doing and not negative attention because I know when I left there it was alot of positive things that pending to occur if FAMU as a whole take self out of the equation and focus on the main purpose, which is to promote higher education.

Stop the mess and stop giving those on the outside the satisfaction of the University failing!!!!!!!!

Anonymous
Sat Sep 3 2011 11:05
You guys are investigating her because of a sour grapes anonymous complaint! Probably was somebody who was let go in the budget cuts. Do y'all have any idea how many people there are at FAMU working on degrees and using actual work time to pursue their degree? How many people who spend most of their work day either doing nothing? Shoot, sounds like the General Counsel has too much time on his hand. I thought he was busy enough losing all of the cases that he does. Has anybody ever checked him out?
Kim
Sat Sep 3 2011 10:52
Hey Ms. Hardee, come work for my company! We'd actually appreciate all that overtime you work---it sure sounds like FAMU doesn't!
Kent
Sat Sep 3 2011 10:16
Did anybody catch Ammons statement---"non-disciplinary employment action". That make the headline in the article way overblown to me. Sounds like he just asked her to declare more leave hours. even that doesn't sound fair to me if she works so much overtime.
Anonymous
Sat Sep 3 2011 10:07
Sounds like a bogus investigation to me. How do you ding someone for such a small amount of time when they are already putting in far more time in extra work? My company allows us to work from home and have flexible workdays. This ain't new stuff! As long as I work 40 hours in a week, I am allowed a lot of flexibility in when that work is done. You would think that a University of all places would be more up to date!
Anonymous
Sat Sep 3 2011 08:00
@Anonymous - FAMU was audited by state auditors on numerous occasions. If something was wrong, they would have uncovered it during the audit. I use to be an auditor and it's extremely hard to hide anything from us. Now stop acting like a back alley slave and cease the slanderous attacks. Better still, find something worthless to do with yourself.

@Rick-beater - Are you willing to go back and finish junior high school so that you can improve your writing skills. If I was a prosecutor, I certainly wouldn't listen to someone who was illiterate. Cut out the slanderous attacks.

Now let's go out to Bragg Stadium today and supports the Rattlers. Are you in?

Anonymous
Fri Sep 2 2011 23:47
Is it fair to say this person is good for the University just because they made improvements that's later gonna cause for more investigations?
Rick--beater
Fri Sep 2 2011 23:43
Rick I got one question for you are you willing to follow Mrs. Hardee if she's convited?... you see if you're a great supporter of her you should back up your words and leave when she is escorted off campus.
Rick
Fri Sep 2 2011 18:20
@Anonymous - People like you can cause more harm to FAMU's good name with anonymous, baseless claims than you realize. Ms. Hardee is an outstanding CFO and has done some wonderful things for FAMU. You need not look any further than FAMU's most recent financial audits. Before Dr. Ammons & Ms. Hardee arrived, FAMU was headed to hell. We're no longer on probation and we now have clean audits. The economy is bad EVERYWHERE! Dr. Ammons and Ms. Hardee have to make financial & personnel decisions that are in the best interest of the university. It has nothing to do with "who they like or who they don't like". Employee layoffs are sometimes very painful, but it's a sacrifice that has to be made to keep our university strong. I can't comment on Ms. Hardee's situation or Dr. Ammons' actions because I do not know all of the facts. What I do know is that FAMU's CFO works 24/7 and has probably put in more time for FAMU in a year than you or a typical employee does in 5 years. With that said, I'm a huge supporter of FAMU and I strongly believe that Dr. Ammons has us going in the right direction. He's my President, Ms. Hardee is my CFO and may God bless them both. If you truly love FAMU, cut out the mess and let's look for ways to make our university stronger so that we can continue to attract the best & the brightest and rehire some folks.........maybe even you. Do we have a deal?
Anonymous
Fri Sep 2 2011 15:07
���When you do wrong to people it comes back to you���. Dr. Ammons and his Leadership team is slowly taking hits one at a time it���s unconceivable to me how a FAMUan allowed people who don���t love FAMU tear our beloved University apart. It���s unfortunate that the people who went to bat for Dr. Ammons to become the 10th president at FAMU have found themselves on the outside looking in as he and his administration has turned their back on the true FAMUans. I was once was told when I was young ���What you do in the dark will come to light.��� Mrs. Hardee you���re on the clock. There���s no secret that you���ve, had your sights on eliminating good people you didn���t like, reducing departments employees to become ineffective, and you���ve mistreated people on your staff now Dr. Ammons leadership team wants us to play stupid like we don���t know what���s going on��� For those who attempt to intimidate the employees to prevent us from telling what���s going on we pray to the lord that may their tongues cleave to the roof of their mouths the next time they treating to fire any one of us for telling the truth.






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