September

14, 2016

The Honorable Thomas K. Norment, Jr.
Senate Majority Leader
Post Office Box 6205
Williamsburg, VA 23188

Dear Senator Norment:

I am receipt of your letter of September 9, 2016. I would like to extend my appreciation to
you and the members of the respective subcommittees for focusing on the legality of the
University of Virginia's $2.3 billion fund, and I hope you will also agree that transparency
and integrity are at the very heart of the publics trust.

But the issue has never been the legality of the fund. Instead, the issues have always been
that the Universitys administration disguised the money, had private conversations with
just a handful of the Board of Visitors' leadership about how to spend public money and the
investment income off of this public money, and convinced the Board to go along with its
plans in an illegal closed session while simultaneously instructing members to keep them a
secret from us and the public.

I am not looking at this from a rarified perspective. Instead, what I know comes from
spending years as an Intelligence Officer with Naval Special Warfare and at Naval
Investigative Service. And as it relates to the University of Virginias missteps and efforts by
its leadership to cover its tracks, you have been misled.

Rector Bill Goodwin has been far less than candid over the course of numerous
conversations, Ive been given the run-around by President Terry Sullivan, and plainly told
by Pat Hogan, the Universitys chief operating officer, that whats gone on is none of my
business. Unfortunately for them, it is. It is for all of us legislators who are charged with
keeping a careful eye on the publics wallet. Worse for them, I have documentation and
accounts from a wide range of sourcesincluding many board membersthat for
whatever reason, Virginias leadership and citizens have been led astray.

And if the law has not been broken, certainly its spirit has been crushed.



Senator Thomas K. Norment, Jr.
September 14, 2016
Page 2


As others have observed, there are obviously philosophical differences about the best use of
$2.3 billion and the investment income generated off of those funds that we can discuss at
length, and hope we will. I was glad to learn today that the House Appropriations
Committee will be pressing the University to enhance its plans to better serve the needs of
Virginians when it comes to an affordable degree. I hope the Senate will join in that effort.

At the same time, I take it as a personal affront that anyone or any agency accountable to the
General Assembly and the publicand university presidents and members of a Board of
Visitors certainly arewould have the audacity to dictate terms and rules advantageous to
them, but not to the people we have been chosen to serve.

Nor should anyone dismiss the unwise precedent that such a diminution of legislative
authority sets and the impact it would have on bureaucratic accountability across all
agencies. Moreover, Virginias code does not provide for a firewall that the University of
Virginia can hide behind when it suits their purpose.

Warmest regards,


Bill DeSteph

th
Senator, 8 District