NIU President John La Tourette responded Wednesday to the proposed elimination of the Board of Regents and accusations that it is mishandling money.

One of the issues that has arisen is Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra’s stepped-up calls for the elimination of NIU’s governing board, the Board of Regents. La Tourette is in Springfield to attend a Regents meeting.

La Tourette was in Dallas last week for an NCAA meeting and in New York for a meeting of the Financial Accounting Standards board which sets accounting regulations for the U.S. He said he was appointed to the council because of NIU’s top-rated accounting program.

La Tourette said recent developments in Kustra’s efforts to eliminate the Regents and the Board of Governors indicate Gov. Jim Edgar’s decision to change the governing structure of higher education in Illinois. He said it was apparent that Kustra had been given a task.

La Tourette also said he had no problems with the Regents despite an Auditor General’s Report released last week which detailed what the auditor considered wasteful spending of tax dollars by Regents Chancellor Roderick Groves.

La Tourette said he would rather have the “strong” governing board NIU has with the Regents as opposed to a powerless board set up by the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

“My greatest fear is that if Kustra succeeds in this venture, what we’ll end up with are emasculated boards that are meaningless. If you give me a choice, I want a strong board for NIU, and we appear to have a very strong board with the Board of Regents,” he said.

La Tourette said the question of the elimination of the Regents would be settled by the legislature. “If the legislature determines that we have to have a separate board, I think we should have all of the authority the Board of Regents has now.”

According to La Tourette, Kustra’s recommendation to eliminate the Regents seems conneted to IBHE Chair Art Quern’s December announcement that he would seek legislative authority for the IBHE to cut programs—a power currently held by the public university governing boards such as the Regents.

The Regents govern Illinois State University at Normal and Sangamon State University at Springfield, in addition to NIU.

La Tourette said meetings between the Regents universities and the IBHE will be within the next two weeks regarding the Priorities, Qualities and Productivity initiative, which the IBHE used to recommend the elimination of 190 programs at state universities.

La Tourette also echoed concerns raised by the Regents about a lack of dialogue between the Regents universities and the IBHE. La Tourette said the dialogue is important because the IBHE has not yet responded to lists submitted by the universities which pinpoint programs they are willing to eliminate which are different than the IBHE recommendations.

The meetings largely are the result of the concerns raised by ISU President Tom Wallace, La Tourette said.

The Regents will meet again today in Springfield