Using Proviso Budget for Other Than Designation

[bnadeau73]

Washington State

A legislature defined separate line item for a proviso budget is being used for other departments than are specified in the line item. Is this illegal? Do you need further information? Any advice would be appreciated.

Respectfully,

BN

[Mr. Knowitall]

Can you rephrase your first sentence to be what you intended to write, and also identify the statute at issue? Thanks.

What makes this a criminal law issue?

[bnadeau73]

At a certain four-year university, the program that I am enrolled in has been allotted special funds. These funds were granted by legislature and specifically defined under a proviso budget for our department (it is a unique line item). These funds enable our program to employ permanent tenure-track professors. A certain individual in administration has been funneling a portion of these funds into other programs. These funneled funds are then replaced by a temporary budget fund, which only allows our department to hire lecturers. What makes this situation bad for the department is that only tenure track professors are able to do research which provides grants to fund our department. What is going on is very political and most of which is over my head, but what I do know is that individuals that have gone against this administrator's decisions on this and other questionable actions have been replaced (or the administrator attempted to replace them) or have been demoted.
Many feel, or would like to believe, that the funneling of funds from the proviso budget is illegal. I posted this under criminal because it would appear to be a white-collar crime if it is illegal. Ultimately, this and another post made about a different issue dealing with this same administrator are feelers to determine if we should consult an attorney for a potential class action lawsuit on behalf of our program's student body. Thank you for taking the time to look at this.

[Mr. Knowitall]

You previously stated that you were talking about something that was "legislature defined", but now you are talking about your feelings? If you're not aware of any law that would apply, you can look through the Washington State statutes here. If you are actually speaking of a statute, the means by which a legislature defines what entities can and cannot do, please identify the statute.

I cannot review the terms of the grant from here, so I cannot begin to guess what is or is not permitted by the grant. I would expect that the university's own lawyers have approved what the department is doing.