Steve Foucart on April 1 shed the interim title as Missouri State University’s chief financial officer. Foucart’s management responsibilities run deep: accounting, accounts receivable and payable, budget control and preparation, student aid disbursement, fiscal planning, real estate and bond financing for the school and its roughly $250 million annual budget. He also serves as treasurer for the university’s board of governors and manages accounting for the MSU Foundation. Named MSU controller in 2008, Foucart served as interim CFO for roughly a year. He referred questions about accounting practices related to the campus bookstore’s recent $1.2 million fraud discovery to the school’s audit report.
The New CFO “My plans are, in the short term, to restructure the department so that some of the duties I was doing as controller can be reassigned to other people to better utilize the talents of the department. I want to be able to restructure financial services so that I can focus more of my time on the CFO duties and more strategic issues. … I serve as the treasurer (of the board of governors and) make the required reports to the president, the board, the state board of education and the General Assembly. But in my day-to-day role with the university, I’m providing them with the financial statements and oversight of the fiscal position of the university – from reporting our financial statements to our year-end process of our revenues and expenses, to our statement of net assets. Also, we provide a comparison of our budget to the prior year at any given point in time.”
Capital Plans “We are currently looking at various academic, recreational and athletic improvements to the campus. We are currently in an evaluation stage. We have discussed these with the board – just some general, big-scope picture items that we are evaluating which have the potential to enhance [the campus] academically or socially. These would be improvements to the campus that could lead to the issuance of bonds to fund those projects in addition to the state considering a bond issue to provide funds for academic purposes.”
Walnut Street Housing “We went through an evaluation process and determined that we are not going to proceed at this point. We did buy The Monroe apartments recently. It gives us apartment-style housing for the students in a convenient location. It is located adjacent to the university. We are still looking at other opportunities in enhancing our residence life facilities in more of an apartment-style at this point, but the Walnut Street project we are not working on at this time.”
The Right Recipe “Before I came to the university, I was the chief financial officer for Willow Brook Foods. I spent more than 20 years in the agricultural (industry) as CFO, treasurer and chief operating officer for several food companies. Willow Brook was a $250 million in sales food company. … When we sold Willow Brook, I was fortunate that the university had an opening. … From a career standpoint, to work with students and faculty is a great challenge. Coming out of industry, I did have a varied background and I thought I could apply some of those principles here. I was fortunate enough to be hired. Our students are our customers, and I worked with customers. We are here to provide them a quality education, obtain a degree and become an educated person.”
Students as Customers “I can’t get away from the numbers. From a practical side, I’m dealing with how we make processes better how we grow the university, make things more efficient and get better information to the students regarding their bills and payment options. There are a lot of numbers to deal with because I have responsibility for the financial audit, financial statements and bond issues, but a lot of it is also about relationships and building trust with the faculty.”
This installment of Springfield Business Journal’s Architects & Engineers Project Report showcases 26 endeavors by area design and engineering professionals.
