State Tech gets clean audit report, approves airport rehab project

For about the last two decades, State Technical College has gotten a "clean" audit report, President Don Claycomb said Friday.

And that record continued this week, as the Linn-based school's regents received their latest report from the Evers and Company CPA firm.

"That's always very, very important," Claycomb told the News Tribune.

The audit covered the 2014-15 business year that ended last June 30, and the auditors' agreement that State Tech officials "are managing things to a satisfactory manner, with (appropriate) checks and balances" may especially be important this year, Claycomb said, as the regents are searching for Claycomb's successor to take over this July 1.

"I would say it's a good thing in recruiting," Claycomb explained.

"If we had had some audit issues for, say, two of the last five years or something like that - or especially this year - if a president takes a look at that, they may say, "I've got something to do here to clean up,' as opposed to hitting the ground running and making some improvements on the institution."

Also, an audit highlighting mismanagement "is something that's very hard - even if you've 25 years of clean audits since - it's still something that some people don't forget," Claycomb said.

Regents endorsed a plan for an estimated $915,417 project to add a new 10-unit T-hangar and rehabilitate the taxiway from the apron to the runway.

Bids for the project are due Feb. 9, with Missouri's transportation department ultimately providing 90 percent of the funding through a federal grant. State Tech pays the remaining 10 percent.

"We believe that we're going to be able to provide our match - in part, if not in total - through land dedication to the project," Claycomb said.

He said the airport plays dual roles in central Missouri.

"It is a general aviation airport funded, for example, just like the one in Jefferson City or anywhere else," Claycomb explained. "Until we built that, I think we were the only county in Missouri that did not have an airport. Our motivation for building it was because we had an aviation program with A&P mechanics, air freight and power plant."

In fact, one of Claycomb's early jobs when he came to then-Linn Tech in the mid-1990s was "bringing that (original aviation program) up to FAA standards and making improvements on it."

He thinks State Tech is the only Missouri public college that has an FAA-approved program.

"Warrensburg - the University of Central Missouri - used to have a mechanics program," Claycomb recalled, "but they dropped that a few years ago (and) transferred some of the equipment they were using to us."

UCM still operates that airport, he said.

The board also approved an academic calendar running through late summer 2019.

"We do set the calendar based on touching on three, 16-week semesters during the year," he said, "which makes students eligible for financial aid on a year-round basis."

Also, the regents updated the school's nondiscrimination policy, "based on federal law and federal expectations that we are to meet," Claycomb said.

The updated policy says the school is committed to "nondiscrimination and equal opportunities in its admissions, educational programs, activities and employment regardless of race, gender identity, gender expression, sex, sexual orientation, religion, color, national origin, age, disability or status as a protected veteran to ensure nondiscrimination."

Friday's meeting was the regents' next-to-last scheduled meeting Claycomb expects during his presidency.

However, he anticipates one or two special meetings - approving the airport work final contract, as it will be more than $100,000 - between now and the end of June.