Texas Southern University is facing renewed scrutiny from state leaders after a recent audit indicated significant problems with financial oversight and recordkeeping. On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick directed the Texas Rangers to investigate the university, following a state auditor’s findings that pointed to delays in financial reporting and weaknesses in contract and purchasing management.
The situation has raised questions about whether the university could see its state funding temporarily frozen. Patrick said he intends to discuss the possibility with Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burrows. It remains unclear how soon any funding freeze could occur or what the impact would be on Texas Southern University, which is one of the nation’s largest historically Black universities, serving around 8,000 students in Houston.
The audit, led by State Auditor Lisa Collier, pointed to staff vacancies in important financial oversight roles. In a letter to Patrick and other members of the state Legislature’s Audit Committee, Collier wrote that missing staff contributed to reporting delays and gaps in monitoring assets and contracts. She noted that the university submitted its financial reports to the state comptroller ten months late for the 2023 fiscal year and four months late for 2024.
Additionally, the preliminary audit found that more than 700 invoices, totaling more than $280 million, were linked to vendors whose contracts had expired in the university’s contract database. Another 800 invoices, worth nearly $160 million, were dated before purchases were formally requested or approved, raising concerns about whether spending controls were consistently followed.
Texas Southern University issued a written statement in response, saying it is cooperating fully with the audit and has already taken steps to improve financial oversight. The statement said the university had “enacted corrective measures” prior to the audit’s release, including adopting a new purchasing system. However, the university declined to provide additional details about staffing vacancies or comment on the potential impact of any funding freeze.
This is not the first time the university has faced questions over financial management. In 2020, internal investigations into the law school admissions process uncovered allegations of bribery and kickbacks, ultimately leading to the removal of then-President Austin Lane. Investigators reported that some students with weak academic qualifications were admitted and awarded more than $430,000 in scholarship funds. They also discovered cashier’s checks and money orders hidden beneath an admissions official’s desk calendar.
Patrick criticized the university’s progress since that time, saying in a statement on the social media platform X that, “The legislature has continued year-after-year to try to help the school,” and that lawmakers had been “misled over this time period on promised improvements in accounting practices and contracting.”
Shortly after Patrick’s announcement, Abbott issued his own statement saying he had asked the Department of Public Safety to investigate what he called the “potential misappropriation of hundreds of millions of dollars.” He said that “waste, fraud, and abuse will not be tolerated.”
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