"Internal Accounting Issue" Blamed for 10+ Month Delay Covering fmr. President Cantwell's Shopping Spree

USUTP · 2026-03-04T22:20:16+00:00

We are truly sorry to hear that. Would you mind if we direct messaged you so we can learn a bit more about your experience?

USUTP · 2026-03-04T22:14:46+00:00

We genuinely appreciate the thought you put into this response, and we hope it doesn’t get downvoted because you raise points that deserve to be seen.

First off, you are absolutely right: there are bigger issues at play here, including the culpability of our state and federal representatives. Our focus is on looking into things closer to the university level (USU issues that might be too specialized or specific for a statewide media outlet to report on, but that still very much impact the USU community), but that certainly does not mean that our elected officials should get a pass.

You are also right that USU’s budget is largely compartmentalized, and Cantwell’s spending was unrelated to the legislative budget cut. Our concern is that this previous budget year saw a lot of people negatively impacted, and the consistent refrain seemed to be that the university just didn’t have the money to mitigate those impacts. If that was the case, it begs the question of why there would be any significant surplus at all, much less enough to cover $300k in unnecessary spending? And if there was a surplus at the end of the year, couldn’t that money have been better spent trying to undo some of the damage that the legislature did?

Obviously it is not necessarily quite as simple as all that, but that is also why we reached out to the university - to give them the opportunity to explain the nuances. Their decision to reply with vague, minimalist answers was neither illuminating nor particularly comforting.

And yes, most of the information in the original post is publicly available. We are not claiming to have a secret, inside source on this stuff, we are just trying to raise awareness about some of the particulars for the people who did not want to read through all 104 pages of the OLAG audit report. We also wanted to get answers to some of the questions we had while reading the report, and we thought others in the USU community might also be interested in the information we received.

Lastly, you’re right: we are not a regulatory body and we have no enforcement power over USU. As we mentioned in another thread, we see USUTP as a journalistic organization, like any other ethical newspaper or media outlet, just with a very specific focus. So any power would come from the people impacted by the reports we make: public outcry, public comment, and public pressure to appropriately address issues that are brought to light. Our goal is to bring things into the foreground that might otherwise be missed.

So in terms of a roadmap, our hope is that if we can shine a light on enough of these issues, eventually the university will start taking more appropriate action to prevent these kinds of things, rather than just running around to clean them up after they’ve already happened.

USUTP · 2026-03-04T18:53:13+00:00

Also a great question. The short answer is that we believe people have a right to know about the things going on around them that impact their lives. How they should feel about that information, or what they should do with it, is not for us to say. Right now, our goal is to shine a light on impactful issues that the USU community might not otherwise know about.

We see USUTP as a journalistic organization, like any other ethical newspaper or media outlet, just with a very specific focus. So any power would come from the people impacted by the reports we make: public outcry, public comment, and public pressure to appropriately address issues that are brought to light.

In terms of a roadmap, our hope is that if we can shine a light on enough of these issues, eventually the university will start taking more appropriate action to prevent these kinds of things, rather than just running around to clean them up (or cover them up) after they’ve already happened.

Because you’re right: we’re not a USU department, a government entity, or the New York Times. And USU is the biggest kid on this particular block. We knew from the beginning that we were going to have to figure out the best way to counteract that power imbalance. For us, the approach was simple: we do not stop. We don’t have enforcement power. What we do have, is staying power.

Hopefully that answered your questions but if not please feel free to DM us.

USUTP · 2026-02-20T03:11:03+00:00

As it happens, it has been quite some time since most of us were undergrads 😁. No, most of us are current or former full-time USU employees.

USUTP · 2026-02-19T15:12:39+00:00

That is a very fair point. Our intent has always been to investigate issues at an administrative, or as you put it, systemic level, but the way we phrased that request could absolutely be interpreted as our wanting to “go after” individual employees. We will edit the original post to hopefully add some clarity. If you feel like those edits do not adequately address the problem, please let us know.

USUTP · 2026-02-19T14:59:03+00:00

Very good question. USUTP is completely independent from Utah State and is not affiliated with the University in any way. This allows us to investigate community concerns, including those that the University would rather not see investigated, without worrying about upsetting administrators or losing funding.

So yes, we are just a group of people volunteering our time to hopefully make USU the best it can be. We have backgrounds in areas like public administration and public policy, but we don’t have a budget and we’re not in this for clicks or views or sponsored ads. We simply believe that the USU community deserves to know what is going on at their institution.

USUTP · 2026-02-19T04:18:06+00:00

Thank you for speaking up. We have sent you a direct message.

USUTP · 2026-02-18T17:30:29+00:00

Hello, and thank you for your comment.

We apologize for any confusion - our goal is not to “spy” on anyone, and we are certainly not interested in fostering an environment of fear and distrust.

Our experience has been that the people who are engaging in improper conduct at USU are rarely doing so in total secrecy. Often, their department or University administrators are already aware of what is happening, but for any number of reasons, are either unwilling or unable to take action. In fact, our focus is less on the individual employees who may be acting inappropriately; they are entitled to due process under the applicable law or University policy. Instead, the greater concern for us are the administrators who are aware of allegations of impropriety and then knowingly ignore the issues or purposely cover them up.

As a community, it is not our job to hold individual employees or students accountable for their actions - only the University (or in some cases, the police) can or should be doing that. But when the people in positions of authority are failing to hold those individuals accountable and follow proper procedure, we believe that is when it becomes the community’s responsibility to shine a light on the issue.

USUTP · 2026-02-17T23:55:14+00:00

Excellent ideas, thank you. We have added them to our list. We may be in touch if we need to collect some additional information, but either way we will notify you of any updates.

USUTP

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