Kennesaw State University plans to end its requirement that commuter students purchase a meal plan.
The decision is part of a response to an audit last month by the state's University System that found several employee violations, as well as managerial and financial problems with the school's food services division. The audit led to the resignation of a high-ranking division director. Four other KSU administrators were also fired.
The June audit found that six of the seven dining outlets at KSU operated at a loss in fiscal 2015, that its dining contract was too expensive and favorable to the contractor, and that the department had weak controls for expenses.
The school plans to end the mandatory meal plans “no later than” the close of fiscal year 2018, KSU’s interim president, Houston Davis, said in the audit response, dated July 8 and released to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday in response to an open-records request. KSU also plans to provide “some level of relief” to students paying for the required plans during the upcoming school year, until the plans are eliminated within the next two years.
KSU requires all students to purchase a meal plan based on their credit hours, regardless of whether they live on campus. School officials will detail to University System chancellor Hank Huckaby by the end of next month how the university plans to eliminate the meal plans required for commuter students.
The mandatory meal plan had been a sticking point for some students, including one who filed a lawsuit in May against the state's Board of Regents, which governs KSU and Georgia's other public colleges.
In addition to eliminating those plans, KSU plans to reorganize the food service division’s management structure, renegotiate its dining contract and ensure the school is in compliance with the University System’s ethics and compliance rules.
The report also noted that KSU failed to report to the University System all its internal investigations into wrongdoing by the school’s former dining director.
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