WSU inquiry remains a secret
Taxpayers on hook for $863,000 in salaries for suspended workers.
— wright state university FAIRBORN is continuing to pay the salaries of a trio of high-ranking administrators and an academic lecturer while each is on leave pending an investigation into actions the university has refused to make public.
together, the four employees at the public institution receive more than $86 3,000 in annual compensation.
the university is also on the hook for legal fees incurred during the investigation. ohio attorney general mike dewine hired a cincinnati law firm that will advise wright state on a variety of matters related to the investigation, according to documents obtained by the dayton daily news.
all legal expenses are being charged to wright state.
among those placed on leave is sundaram narayanan,
the school provost and the university’s thirdhighest employee. Narayanan is the cofounder of Wright State’s research arm, and his leave comes at a time when the university’s research function stands to grow in importance, if provisions in the emerging state budget become law.
At least three of the four people placed on leave had ties to the Wright State Research Institute (WSRI). Narayanan founded WSRI with David Hopkins, Wright State’s president, in 2007. Ryan Fendley, who was most recently senior advisor to Narayanan, served as director of WSRI. And Phani Kidambi, an engineering lecturer, worked for the institute as well. One commenter on Kidambi’s personal Facebook page called him “the face of WSRI.”
The four employees were suspended on the same day last month; all continue to receive their salaries.
Narayanan’s annual pay is $406 ,6 01, while Gwen Mattison, the school’s general counsel, makes $213,211, and Fendley $16 9,147.
Also suspended with pay and benefits: Kidambi, a lecturer in the university’s biomedical, industrial and human factors engineering department. His annual salary is $74,885.12, according to university records.
Together, the annual compensation for the four suspended employees totals $86 3,844.12, according to Wright State.
Narayanan, Mattison and Fendley were all given May 4 suspension letters by Hopkins.
“As you are aware, Wright State University continues to cooperate with an ongoing outside investigation,” Hopkins wrote in the letters. “The university has begun its own internal investigation as well.”
Wright State has refused to disclose the nature of the investigation, but budget memos from DeWine’s office to the law firm, Dinsmore & Shohl, refer to “immigration matters,” along with “patent” and “advice & services re: internal investigations.”
The summaries do not detail the nature of the internal investigations but show Wright State, as of mid-May, was expected to pay Dinsmore & Shohl at least $70,000 for legal advice.
Dan Tierney, a spokesman for DeWine, declined to discuss the issues that forced the firm’s appointment, and George Vincent, managing partner at Dinsmore & Shohl, did not return calls seeking comment.
Michael Bridges, chair of Wright State’s Board of Trustees, said the university is exploring best practices on a range of issues. But he would not discuss why the employees were placed on leave.
“We’re looking at a lot of different things,” Bridges said. “We’ve asked for support from the attorney general’s office, from the state, we’ve asked for (help) from Dinsmore & Shohl and also Plante Moran (an accounting firm). So we’re really doing a review of all of those, many different policies and procedures that we have at the university.”
‘Pretty unique’
Richard Vedder, director and founder of the Athens, Ohio-based Center for College Affordability and Productivity, said simultaneously placing so many senior people on leave is “extremely unusual.”
“I don’t recall a incident in recent times as big as this,” said Vedder, who is also an economics professor at Ohio University.
“To suspend four people at once and not explain why — or for the public to be totally clueless as to why — I think is pretty unique.”
Placing top administrators on leave with pay is common, Vedder said. The question is why they were placed on leave, he said.
“The sinister explanation is to keep people quiet for a while ... they’re buying silence, at $2,500 a day roughly,” Vedder said. “That’s a pretty high price to pay.”
Critical time
The investigations and suspensions come at a critical time for the university. In the state budget proposal working its way through the Ohio General Assembly, Wright State Applied Research Corp. — a nonprofit that administers lucrative research contracts for WSRI — would gain $20 million over two years.
Narayanan and Hopkins founded WSRI in 2007.
Although the university is keeping quiet about the reasons for Narayanan’s leave, he has been extremely well regarded by the university administration. In a biography on the university web site, the university calls Narayanan’s career “exemplary,” saying that when he was dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the college experienced its “highest enrollment in its history; the school’s research funding grew by 6 7 percent from $9 million in 2009 to $15 million in 2012.”
Narayanan declined to comment when reached by phone. No one responded at Mattison’s home when a reporter knocked on the door. Attempts to reach Kidambi were unsuccessful.
The Senate version of the Ohio budget that passed Thursday included the money for the Applied Research Corp.
Bridges — president of Peerless Technologies Corp., a Fairborn-based federal contractor — said he does not believe the ongoing investigations will imperil Wright State’s position as a federal research institution.
“That continues and will continue uninterrupted,” he said.