Legislators said they were dissatisfied with Morgan State University officials' responses yesterday to an audit outlining potentially criminal procurement practices on campus construction projects, and insisted on a more detailed investigation.
Yesterday's hearing in the Senate Budget and Taxation committee marked the first time that Morgan President Earl S. Richardson has spoken publicly about the audit, which found that the state school padded a construction contract with a $3.1 million cushion then used those funds to pay the same contractor for different work without getting state approval.
But after hours of explanations from auditors and school officials, senators ended the hearing in frustration.
"Certainly there are a lot of questions that weren't answered," said Sen. Edward J. Kasemeyer, a Baltimore County Democrat who chaired yesterday's hearing. He said he would probably call the attorney general and "ask for advice" about how to proceed.
Auditors have referred their investigation to the criminal division of the attorney general's office. More hearings are scheduled in the House of Delegates next week, and key lawmakers said they anticipated more heated questioning then.
In his testimony, Richardson acknowledged that "an error has been made" but urged lawmakers not to jump to conclusions about his administration's ability to manage its own construction projects.
"We should not have spent any money beyond the project" approved by the Board of Public Works, Richardson said. "There was an error made, it was an error in judgment, and I am the first to admit it."
In January, Morgan's director of design and construction, Peeter Kiik, resigned. The university has said it believes Kiik "acted independently" in managing the deals with the Whiting Turner Construction Co. that caught auditors' attention.
Whiting Turner has declined to comment on the contracts, as has the attorney general's office.
The audit, which covered the period Nov. 2003 through Jan. 2007, found:
Morgan spent $2.4 million of the $3.1 million cushion in "questionable payments" to Whiting Turner and could not explain where some of the money went.
Whiting Turner was overpaid $825,250 by the school in duplicate billings.
The college appeared to artificially divide projects into smaller pieces in order to avoid Board of Public Works scrutiny.
