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WSU fine troubling

In a time of financial crisis, when WSU is still facing cuts, the university has been penalized $84,000 for a 2007 overt failure to accurately report crime statistics.

I am a former safety and risk manager and well aware of how fines impact an organization. Before one spends more money appealing the fine, one must ask whether the investigators correctly identified a problem that existed in 2007 and not whether the fine should be mitigated because WSU has improved its reporting policies.

The severe penalty is in place for a reason: to make the benefits of compliance outweigh the risk of ignoring the reporting rules. This fine is a hard slap on the hands for administrators who think they can ignore any aspect of required reporting.

Who knows how many more sexual assaults have been “swept under the rug” because of underreporting or inaccurate reporting?

Improper handling of investigations, or improper reporting – which is it? Neither is acceptable.

Dianne L. Lowe

Pullman

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