Sure, you thought we were overreacting when we called for Lawrence Small's resignation from the Smithsonian after his shady sellout to Showtime Networks. Finally, in March, the Smithsonian Board of Regents came to their senses and booted Small after it came to be known that he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on private luxuries, such as pool heaters and chandelier cleaning. (Interestingly, we received an unusually high number of hits from the Smithsonian Institution domain (si.edu) on our post calling for Small's resignation in the week leading up to his forced resignation.) Now, following a three-month investigation, an independent committee has found that Small's fancy banking background wasn't translating into a big funding increase for the museum after all. In his last year as Secretary, Small raised less private funding than the previous secretary, Ira Heyman, a former Berkeley law professor, did in 1999.
From 2000 to 2006, the report said, he also took 70 weeks of vacation — nearly 10 weeks a year — and spent 64 business days serving on corporate boards that paid him a total of $5.7 million.
Rather than rein him in, the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents stood by passively, the document said, and allowed him to spend the institution’s money profusely on personal expenses and treat the board as irrelevant to decision-making.
“It appears that the board reported to him rather than the secretary reporting to the board,” the report said. “The Committee was told by a regent that Mr. Small ‘did not listen to the opinions of the regents’ and “did not seek input from the regents.’ ”
Small was replaced this past March by Cristian Samper, a biologist, who, for those who are keeping track, is the first scientist to hold the post since Robert Adams, an anthropologist, left the post after a 10-year term in 1994.
The Washington Post has a much more detailed account of the report's findings. You can download the full report to the Smithsonian Board of Regents here. The Washington Post offers answers for the question of how Small managed to skirt by for so many year before auditors and the Board of Regents caught on:
The Smithsonian seemed to be running on its own, said Bowsher, with "management being away too much and regents not spending enough time" on Smithsonian business.
Panel member Smith, former president of the management consulting firm Watson Wyatt, said the regents' inaction during Small's tenure was troublesome. Early in Small's stint, news reports detailed the staff's unhappiness with the secretary.
"One would think now that the regents then might have said, 'Gee, that's a lot of smoke, and let's see if there is really any fire,' " Smith said. If they had acted then, "they probably would have had a come-to-Jesus meeting with Larry Small and said this can't go on."