Utah
Audit finds ‘insufficient board governance’ within the Utah Board of Higher Education
Sophomore Gaelen Kinkead, proper, sits subsequent to her pal and fellow sophomore Ashlay Findley on the College of Utah campus in Salt Lake Metropolis on Sept. 19. A brand new legislative audit assessing the effectivity and effectiveness of the Utah System of Increased Training discovered “a number of occurrences of inadequate board governance.” (Ben B. Braun, Deseret Information)
Estimated learn time: 4-5 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — The vast majority of Utah’s degree-granting public larger training establishments — six of the eight — fall under peer and nationwide averages in relation to commencement charges, based on findings of a latest audit.
“Utah appears to fall far under many different states,” mentioned audit supervisor Jesse Martinson.
The legislative audit, assessing the effectivity and effectiveness of the Utah System of Increased Training, discovered “a number of occurrences of inadequate board governance” inside the Utah Board of Increased Training.
“The Legislature has made it clear in code how they want the board to control the system of upper training,” Martinson mentioned. “They’ve additionally prioritized the system of upper training to the tune of $1.3 billion {dollars} … So, clearly, larger training is very prioritized by the Legislature.”
Board members mentioned they have been engaged on turning the tide.
“Utah taxpayers and Utah college students deserve a system that works and people completion numbers are usually not working and we all know that and we’ve initiatives underway to alter it,” mentioned Board of Increased Training chairwoman Lisa Church.
The audit recognized three particular areas of enchancment that the board can work on, together with tuition approval, presidential evaluations and operational effectivity monitoring.
So far as tuition approval, Martinson mentioned that the board checked out this challenge in a 2018 audit, the place it discovered that the board did not have “plenty of dialogue (and) did not actually have impartial, goal data to make a willpower whether or not or not tuition wanted to be elevated.”
“Sadly, we’ve not discovered plenty of enchancment,” Martinson mentioned.
The audit additionally pointed to issues with presidential evaluations at degree-seeking establishments.
When taking a look at annual presidential evaluations from 2016 to 2022, the audit discovered that solely 9 evaluations had been accomplished “when there ought to have been no less than 40 of them,” Martinson mentioned.
He added that the Workplace of the Commissioner of Increased Training might higher help the board with its “mounds” of knowledge that’s being underutilized, mentioning that a lot of the board is a volunteer board, made up of people who find themselves “being requested to make very massive selections on a really massive system with the restricted time that they’ve.”
The audit additionally requested the Legislature to affirm its governance needs for the board.
Establishments are spending numerous cash, not being held accountable, they weren’t capable of decide in the event that they had been being environment friendly with the funds they had been utilizing.
–Jesse Martinson, audit supervisor
When taking a look at the place the board presently stands on the spectrum of governance, Martinson mentioned it isn’t the place it must be.
“As an alternative of being a consolidating board, they’re nearer to a coordinating board,” Martinson mentioned. “Establishments are spending numerous cash, not being held accountable, they weren’t capable of decide in the event that they had been being environment friendly with the funds they had been utilizing.”
A coordinating board, based on the audit, is when a single coordinating board and/or company is accountable for key points of the state’s position with public postsecondary establishments and in some circumstances, impartial faculties.
Conversely, the audit says {that a} consolidating board — what the auditors are urging the board to be — is a statewide governing board that manages and oversees most features of the general public larger training system and sometimes has broad authority over establishments.
The audit additionally discovered that establishments are delegating the approval of tuition will increase — together with program approval — to their respective boards of trustees.
“We discovered a large chasm between the place they must be and the place they’re,” Martinson mentioned, noting that by way of the suggestions of the audit, the board can turn into the consolidating board that Utah code desires it to be.
The final a part of the audit discovered that Utah’s board is way bigger than boards of comparable construction in states of comparable dimension.
Utah’s board presently has 18 members, whereas different states that the audit in contrast Utah to have between eight and 13 members.
“We felt that one thing that they might do to be extra nimble and extra proactive and be capable to have extra well timed responses is to maybe look to cut back the scale of the board,” Martinson mentioned.
“I do not know any group that may have an 18-member board and be efficient, so, most likely have to take a look at that,” mentioned Utah Home Speaker Brad Wilson.
Whereas responding to the audit and its suggestions, Church mentioned that she believes the state has the appropriate board to implement the modifications the audit prompt.
“Now we have the instruments to do it, however whether or not or not we have truly gotten up and carried out it’s the query and we welcome the dialogue,” Church mentioned.
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Utah
Amid traffic, Utah walked to Leafs’ arena pregame
TORONTO — The Utah Hockey Club said players were forced to walk to their game against the Maple Leafs after their bus got stuck in Toronto traffic Sunday night.
The team posted a video on social media of team members walking to Scotiabank Arena, with player Maveric Lamoureux saying the bus was “not moving at all.”
Several city streets had been closed during the day for an annual Santa Claus parade.
The Maple Leafs earned their fourth consecutive win by defeating Utah 3-2.
The viral incident prompted Ontario Premier Doug Ford to call the congestion “embarrassing” and “unacceptable,” highlighting his government’s plan to address the city’s gridlock through bike lane legislation.
It wasn’t the first time a Toronto visitor had to ditch their vehicle to make it to an event on time.
In June, former One Direction band member Niall Horan had to walk through traffic to get to his concert at Scotiabank Arena.
Utah
Utah Highway Patrol responds to your suggestions on making Utah roads safer
SALT LAKE CITY — FOX 13 News is Driven to Change and that includes bringing you reports on important topics like road rage, construction, and wrong-way drivers. During our coverage, we continually ask for any questions or concerns you may have along Utah’s roadways.
The feedback has gotten an enormous response, so FOX 13 sat down with Lieutenant Cameron Roden on Good Day Utah to help address input we have been getting, from the perspective of Utah Highway Patrol.
Speeding in Utah, there’s so much of it, and then you can sometimes say that that leads to tailgating, which may lead to road rage incidents. What are you seeing out there in terms of speed and what can we do to lessen the effects of that?
Lt. Cameron Roden: Speed is our number one thing that we see. That’s our number one traffic stop that we make, and we know that it leads to the majority of crashes in the state of Utah. So we definitely put an emphasis on speed and it does lead to other things. Not just crashes. It leads to road rage and other things .So, as far as what changes can we make, we need to start with ourselves, and really say, ‘Hey, do I have a problem?’ You know, we just need to start with ourselves and not think that it’s something else’s problem. If we slow our speeds ourselves, and then it’ll start to to catch on and people will do that speed limit. So, but the legislature has definitely taken some steps to help us address, especially the the speeds that are those excessive speeds where we have that one zero five law now that addresses those speeds and increases fines and and hopefully discourages people from those extreme speeds.
Some of our viewers talked about maybe capping some of the speed limits for truck drivers. Is that something that’s even feasible?
You know, that would be something that would have to go through that, that legislative process to see whether we that would be something that would help. But ultimately, if we we start with ourselves, hopefully that will make that change and reduce crashes and fatalities.
There are things being done to try and intervene and stop wrong-way drivers before they happen. But some of our viewers propose things like spikes. What are your thoughts on implementing something like that?
We’ve had over the last several years, a rash of wrong-way drivers, and it’ll come in onesie twos, and then we’ll go for a period of time without that. And so, but this spike over the last couple of years has caused us to to create a task force to look at wrongly driving what things can be done. And so getting all these stakeholders together between UDOT and Highway Safety, looking at what technologies and things that could be implemented, and and things like, wrong way detection cameras. Those are some things that are being actually used in the state of Utah right now to help us spot those and and advance signage, getting people to realize they’re going the wrong way and turn around. The the spike strips have actually been talked about in our task force a little bit. And if something like that would even be, it is that technology available right now. And as what we could actually implement in the state of Utah, there’s nothing that really fits the bill right now because of our environment. We have our snow plows. We have snow and things like that. Something like that really wouldn’t be practical right now.
Probably the most talked about topic that we’ve received was distracted driving, texting while driving. You went out, I saw on the UHP social media page, that you guys just driving and you look to your right and left and you can find someone texting. What kind of enforcement do we have against distracted driving specifically on your phone?
This is something that we like you said, we see it every day. We go out to crashes,and and we may suspect that a driver may be distracted. And so, it’s something that’s definitely under-reported. It’s it’s a bigger problem than than the numbers really show.And so not only do we address it during our normal patrols.Our officers are seeing it, and addressing it while they’re out there.But we’ll also do targeted patrols where the highway safety office actually gives out additional funds for that targeted enforcement, where we’ll get an unmarked vehicle. We go out driving down the roads where we try to spot these vehicles and and get them stopped because those are those are a big danger on our roadways where our attention and our focus needs to be on driving.
If you have ideas or suggestions for how to make Utah’s roadways safer click here to be taken to our Driven to Change form. There you can share your ideas or suggestions.
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Utah
Utah National Guard gets new, top-of-the-line Apache helicopters
WEST JORDAN, Utah — The Utah National Guard has been serving the state since 1894 with roots dating back to the Minutemen of the 17th-century American colonies.
This weekend, they received quite the boost in the form of the Army’s most advanced attack helicopter.
“These aircraft are extremely fast compared to our other aircraft,” said Col. Patrick.
On Saturday, the Utah National Guard took their new Apache helicopters for a spin.
“The flight went better than we could have hoped for. A little weather on the east coast, but after that, it wasn’t bad at all,” Patrick said.
The first four of 24 Apaches arrived early Saturday morning after they went under full inspection.
“They’ve got software on there that it’s like playing a video game. You just fly the video game and the airplane… is fast and smooth, which is the good thing, and so it’ll just hold the altitude and airspeed and just keep on trucking along. It’s pretty good,” Patrick said.
The first Apache helicopters arrived in Utah back in 1992.
“It just continues the legacy of the air pirates and what we bring to not only Utah, but really to the global fight and security, really,” Patrick added.
The colonel calls it a major step forward.
“What a great day for Utah as we advance into the next couple decades of combat operations and what we can provide to, you know, the global security.”
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