NIC SPENDING: Need to include $2.5M for athletic conference change

We are all entitled to make a bad choice now and then, but the measure of citizen boards is in how members can collectively make good decisions and avoid rat traps that tarnish the reputation of institutions like our local college.

The Press article “NIC’s accreditation crisis by the numbers,” 26 December, is a perfect example of how incompetence and political arrogance has destroyed the reputation and so far, chewed up over $1 million of public money in one year. Worse is that the cost of mismanagement will only get worse before the end of this year and through 2024.

Two presidents, one the three politically motivated board members despise and the other they won’t release because it’s apparently cheaper to pay for their mistake by keeping him on the payroll. Two attorneys on contract costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and others on contract to manage all the lawsuits. This is the tip of much bigger problems, and what the Press article overlooked, $2.5 million it will cost taxpayers for NIC to change athletic conference in order to satisfy the curiosity of one board member’s fascination with female wrestling.

All told, the mismanagement by three NIC board members stands at more than $3.5 million, and in the immortal words of Todd Banducci, “This is outrageous.”

REID HARLOCKER

Coeur d’Alene