Florida A&M University’s recent probationary placement by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools is less complex than I thought. It boils down to executive mismanagement, fiscal impropriety and general incompetence. Throw in some specific errors and you’ve got a mess that will be tough to turn around.

The Tallahassee Democrat reports that FAMU’s books were unable to be audited properly and were almost wholly unverifiable:

“The red flags were whipping by last summer, when state auditors released their annual audit of FAMU’s books from July 2004 through June 2005 and qualified their findings. In other words, they said they couldn’t be sure the numbers they were looking at were right.

“They could not audit (FAMU’s) accounting,” said Joelen Merkel, a University of Florida trustee who serves on the state’s FAMU task force. “This is very, very serious.”

No other university has had a qualified state financial audit.”

Indeed it is. The Democrat also has COO Larry Robinson’s explanation for the probation placement, which came after concerns about FAMU’s management mounted year after year:

“It got to the point they felt compelled to ask the university what’s going on,” Robinson said about the number of complaints the accreditation committee members received.

If “probation” means “asking what’s going on,” the OED needs an update.

RattlerNation is doing a solid job tracking the difficult times in Tallahassee.