"Let me begin by saying this has been a really sad episode for the University of Hawaii," said Greenwood.
She pointed out that a detailed report of an investigation into the incident found no evidence that anyone at U.H. committed fraud.
"There was certainly a lack of proper oversight, some poor judgements were made, other avoidable mistakes identified, but nothing intentionally illegal happened."
A copy of the redacted report highlights that Stan Sheriff Center Arena Manager Rich Sheriff was the point person for U.H. with respect to the planned concert.
Athletics Director Jim Donovan assisted in the development of some of the agreement terms and had an opportunity to review the agreement. Otherwise, Donovan had little involvement and provided little oversight, and was out of state when the wire transfer of $200,000 in athletics ticket sales was made.
Greenwood was not notified about the event until 2 months before the concert date.
"In the future I would like to know if there is going to be a big event," said Greenwood.
"The report shows a failure of management in the Athletics Department and additional issues with financial controls at several levels," said U.H, Regents Chair Eric Martinson.
The report finds that no one at U.H. accepts responsibility for authorizing the concert ticket sales.
The fate of the missing $200,000 is being investigated by the FBI.
Greenwood and the Board of Regents add that the University is the victim in this whole unfortunate incident.
"I hope those who care about us will understand our employees made mistakes but the incident that caused that was someone tried to sell us a scam and unfortunately we bit on that," said Greenwood.
Greenwood says U.H. is correcting those mistakes by putting into place policies and procedures to prevent this from ever happening again. Some employees will have their actions reviewed during annual performance evaluations. Employees involved in financial transactions will undergo additional training. Greenwood has also revoked a policy that provided the Athletic Department with significant delegation of authority in financial matters.
"We all make mistakes, we hope we can learn from our mistakes," said Greenwood.
Greenwood and the U.H. Board of Regents met for more than 7-hours behind closed doors before releasing the report, a move she says was an exception due to the high level of public interest.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
