Vice President Peter N. Smits today sent this letter to the Fresno State campus community, members of campus boards and volunteers:

You may have been puzzled by the headline and first few paragraphs of the Fresno Bee story on Saturday, Feb. 16, regarding matching gifts in athletics at Fresno State.

We can’t explain why the headline and story reference a $2 million “loss” and state that “academic programs at Fresno State were shortchanged by $2 million.”

We appreciate the Bee’s coverage of activities here on campus. In this case I was pleased to spend several sessions with the Bee reporter, George Hostetter, regarding this subject. However, in the past day or so we received several calls from people who were generally confused by the article. We thought that some additional information might be helpful to those of you who may be getting similar questions from others in the community
As we have previously explained, academic programs were not directly involved in this issue and therefore never were “shortchanged.” We have previously publicly affirmed that decisions made in 1986 led to the university receiving funds over the years that it was not qualified to receive specifically for athletics. The problem was addressed in 2003 and the university’s policy and procedure was changed to assure that corporate policies were carefully followed.

To ensure that we are making a proper response, we commissioned an extensive external audit covering the period 1986-2003. We made that report available to the public, and it’s still up on the Web (see https://www.fresnostatenews.com/2007/Report.htm ). And following the audit the university has been contacting all 197 companies identified as providing matching gifts to athletics to determine if the matches were qualified. We’re right on track in working on those contacts and we’re finding that, overwhelmingly, companies are qualifying the matches or do not want repayment of matches that did not qualify for athletics. Where action was suggested we are following their lead to the letter.

These gifts from local donors were made through the Bulldog Foundation intended by the local donors and directed by them to be gifts to athletics, not to academic uses on campus. Unfortunately, policies of some corporations that donors asked to “match” the gifts prohibited these gifts from being used for athletics or other purposes directly benefiting the donor. The individuals’ donations could be used for athletics, but the university could not receive the corporate matching gifts specifically for athletics in those cases.

We hope these clarifications are helpful. If you have any further questions about this issue, please call me and I’ll be happy to speak with you.

Peter N. Smits
(559) 278-6050
psmits@csufresno.edu