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Inexcusable waste
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Published: October 12, 2009
It's bad enough when a public university uses tax dollars to finance extended sabbaticals for its administrators. But what's really outrageous is when it spends more than $7 million on a program to help returning troops and produces few benefits for them over a four-year span. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill must demand results immediately from its Citizen Soldier Support Program.
The Raleigh News & Observer reported that the program to help members of the National Guard and the Army Reserve preparing for deployment and returning from Iraq and Afghanistan has little to show for most of a $10-million federal earmark obtained by U.S. Rep. David Price, with the backing of other members of Congress from North Carolina.
Many of these troops who have risked their lives for their country are returning with physical and mental scars. They deserve the best help possible as they re-adjust to civilian life.
But one-quarter of the program's money spent so far has gone to the university to pay for overhead costs, and much of the rest of it has been spent on six-figure salaries, travel and consultants, the Raleigh newspaper reported. Half of the eight full-time employees are paid more than $100,000 annually. They include a deputy director from northern Virginia who has been reimbursed $76,000 for food, travel and lodging while she commutes.
An internal review, which may have been prompted by an anonymous tip, found the program has produced much in the way of paperwork, but little in the way of tangible results. "We're not seeing a lot of action; there's a lot of discussion, but … no results," said the head of the N.C. National Guard, Major Gen. William Ingram.
The program did recently produce a database of North Carolina mental-health-care experts with experience treating military personnel for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. And Rep. Price noted in a letter to the Raleigh newspaper that the program has worked to train the state's mental-health providers to meet the needs of the returning members of the Guard and Reserve.
But much more was needed some time ago. Now, UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp has demanded action. "The program has serious flaws," he told the UNC Board of Trustees. "We need the program to show drastic improvement in a short period of time."
That's an understatement.
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