ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The former president of Truman State University President in Kirksville performed only one task in her year as its consultant that earned her $215,000: She wrote a report on ways the university could cut costs and save money.
The disclosure was first reported Thursday by the university's student newspaper, the Index. The former president, Barbara Dixon, did not return several phone calls by The Associated Press seeking comment.
Cheryl Cozette, chair of the university's board of governors, said Friday that Dixon also worked to enable a smooth transition between her and the current interim president, Darrell Krueger, but added that is difficult to quantify.
Krueger said he didn't need to call Dixon and didn't believe it was his responsibility to ask her to do any work.
"If I would have had a need, I would have called her," Krueger said. "But there were resources here that I tapped."
Dixon announced she was resigning as university president in mid-September 2008 and left the post a month later. She then began a one-year contract as the board's consultant. That job ended in October of this year.
Cozette said the board hadn't yet selected an interim president when it gave Dixon a one-year, $205,000 "open-ended, based-on-need" consulting contract and $10,000 bonus. Krueger, who taught at Truman State in the 1970s, ended up starting as its interim president on Oct. 16, 2008, the day after Dixon left the president's post.
"We didn't anticipate we'd find an interim president with such a rich history with the university," she said. "It minimized the amount of work we asked Dixon to do."
The board did ask Dixon to offer her ideas on budget priorities and places to cut, and to help tackle this "budget crisis we're all experiencing," Cozette said.
Truman State is a four-year public university with about 5,600 undergraduate students and 250 graduate students, according to its Web site. Last month, the state's four-year colleges agreed to a 5.2 percent budget cut without a tuition increase for in-state undergraduates. Last year, Gov. Jay Nixon and universities agreed to no budget cuts or tuition increases.
Krueger had just retired as president of Winona State University when he was tapped as Truman's interim president. He was its dean of instruction and vice president of academic affairs from 1973 to 1989.
Cozette said the board expects to name a permanent president in February. Krueger said he is not seeking the post.
Krueger and Cozette said universities commonly tap outgoing presidents as consultants while they search for successors.
"It's easy to second-guess our decisions," Cozette said. "I prefer to move forward and move on.
"We made the best decision with the information we had."
Krueger wouldn't say how the $215,000 might have been spent otherwise.
"I'm looking forward and trying to earn my salary," he said. "I'm not judging the board or the past president. These are tough times at universities across the country."
Budget Director Dave Rector told the Index that Dixon's consultant salary could have helped cover a loss in state funding.
Dixon, who now lives in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., consults for Myers McRae, which conducts executive searches for institutions of higher education.
Truman State won't be using such services.
The board decided to conduct its own search, Cozette said, "to conserve finances in these tight times."
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
