Texas Southern Regents to Replace Core Campus Software After a State Audit

The Texas Southern University Board of Regents will meet Nov. 12 in Houston and vote on replacing the software the university runs its money and its student records on, less than a year after state auditors reported it could not locate 50 of 60 assets they sampled.

Two contracts carry the overhaul. One moves the student records system to a hosted version run by its vendor, Ellucian, at a cost not to exceed $2.44 million in the coming year. The other buys Workday payroll, finance and budgeting software through an implementation firm, Iron Brick Associates, for about $7.9 million spread over a decade, with the system going live in September 2028. The board’s own analysis projects the pair will cost more in the early years and less after that, saving roughly $21 million over twenty years against staying put. A third item sets an $850,000 ceiling on software bought through resellers.

The timing is not incidental. The State Auditor’s Office reported in December that Texas Southern bought directly from vendors without required approvals, could not produce a complete asset list, filed financial information late and with errors, and did not properly restrict access to its financial system. An earlier letter to legislators counted more than 700 invoices paid to vendors whose contracts had expired and more than 800 dated before anyone requested the purchase. The lieutenant governor said he would press to freeze the university’s state funding; the governor sent the Texas Rangers. No findings have been announced and no one has been charged. The university said it had already begun fixing the problems, including a new purchasing system. Five internal audit reports come before the regents Nov. 12, among them one on who can get into the financial system.

Elsewhere on a long agenda: a 3 percent pay raise for eligible faculty and staff, backdated to Nov. 1 and paid out of the existing budget; three new deans, for education, communications and business; and the building requirements for a proposed Thurgood Marshall Law Center, whose existing building the American Bar Association found in 2021 did not meet its standards. That item carries no money.

The board will meet one member short of its nine appointed seats. Its own notice lists seven regents and omits an eighth.

Meeting at a glance

Board members

• James M. Benham — chair; College Station; chief executive, JBKnowledge.
• Lauren A. Gore — vice chair; Houston; attorney and co-founder, LDR Growth Partners.
• Richard A. Johnson III — second vice chair; Houston; Texas Public Policy Foundation.
• Marilyn A. Rose — secretary; Houston; accountant, Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
• Paloma Z. Ahmadi — Shavano Park; attorney; general counsel of Athena.
• Caroline Baker Hurley — Houston; retired state district judge; arbitrator.
• Ben H. Proler — Houston; commercial manager, Shell; Navy reservist.
• Alithea Z. Sullivan — Austin; attorney; partner, Stone Hilton PLLC.
• Vacant — one appointed seat.
• Joseph V. Carter — student regent; political science major.

Eight of nine appointed seats are filled. The university’s regents page, checked November 6, describes a board of eight members and a student representative, and a legislative directory lists one seat open. The posted meeting notice names seven regents by name and does not include Hurley, whose term runs to February 1, 2027. Officers were elected in October 2025. The governor’s May 2026 release gives the student regent’s home as Houston; the university’s own biography page says Detroit, so no city is printed here.