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AR Baptist College facing several lawsuits


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LITTLE ROCK (KATV)--Seven civil lawsuits have been filed against Arkansas Baptist College since January 2013.

The college has struggled to pay its bills on time, as well as hand out financial aid to students.

Chief of Staff, LaCrescha Newton, said it's because the Federal Department of Education has changed the way they disburse their money to the college and that goes back to an audit they had turned in last fall.

"We are 95 percent dependent Federal Financial Student Aid, and so when those funds aren't received on a timely manner of course it's going to impact every facet of campus life, our students, our employees as well as our vendors," said Newton.

"It's just real frustrating because you're promised you're going to get it a certain day and when that day comes, you get several other excuses saying that the money is not here," said student Maurice Spencer.

Prior to the fall of 2013, the college used to receive funding through an advanced method of payment. This means the department assumes everything is in order with the paperwork, and then the college goes into a system and draws out the funds they were authorized to receive. However, starting in fall 2013, they started receiving funding through heightened cash monitoring. They had to begin submitting paperwork to the department of education then the department has 30 days to approve the funds.

"Due to some audit issues, we were trying to get the audit in on time basically and by doing that there were some findings and so now we're working with the department to show them that those findings were really not findings basically a miscommunication error," added Newton.

Newton added that hopefully in the next 6 to 9 months, they can go back to an advanced method of payment to start paying their bills on time.

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