Maybe it Should be Run Like a Business

Back in my days as an under-performing student at the University of Denver (which lately has been getting a lot of national attention and not all of it good), there was a basketball player who lived in the apartment next to me, who, when not practicing cross-over dribbles or jumpers from the top of the key, used to spend hours reading the Wall Street Journal and related business publications.

He relentlessly tracked things like M&A in various sectors and the burgeoning influence of what became known as venture capital or VC. We all knew he would probably go on to become wildly successful and, ultimately, a millionaire several times over — which, to no one’s surprise, he did.

One day, a small group of us got into a discussion about an article in The Denver Post that chronicled the financial despair of a small neighboring college. The problem he pointed out is that educational institutions foolishly allow academicians to oversee all aspects of operations — including finance, an area in which most had no formal training or the faintest idea of how to manage. His suggestion was that colleges and universities should be run by CEOs and not diploma-laden bureaucrats.

I thought this was incredibly futuristic thinking for someone all of 20 years old, but decided it was most likely far too radical a strategy for the late 1970s.

My rapidly fading memory of that period and that particular conversation was triggered by something I read recently in the Journal of Accountancy that stated how the recent elections resulted in more CPAs entering Congress.

All eight CPA incumbents won re-election to their districts: John Campbell, R-Calif., Mike Conaway, R-Texas, Bill Flores, R-Texas, Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., Steven Palazzo, R-Miss., Collin Peterson, D-Minn., James Renacci, R-Ohio, and Brad Sherman, D-Calif., as well as two more just-elected credential holders — Tom Rice, R-S.C., and Patrick Murphy, D-Fla.

The Senate currently boasts two accountants — Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and long-time Wyoming Republican Mike Enzi, although neither is a CPA.

Now, with all those finance backgrounds, it seems to me it would be sort of a no-brainer to allow these folks to weigh in on the current economic woes and deficits before we begin the free-fall off the fiscal cliff. Much like that troubled university many years ago, it would probably behoove those in charge to siphon all that accounting expertise instead of relying on the usual suspects who’ve done nothing to alleviate the current situation and, in fact, have only exacerbated it.

Sadly, that college spewing all that red ink shut down just two years later and I have occasionally wondered if the outcome might have been different had it been handled by those with financial acumen.

The expertise is there for the country. Now if only the bureaucrats can just stay out of the way.