Spendy TSU president under investigation

Texas Southern University President Priscilla Slade has reimbursed more than $138,000 of the university's money that she spent on landscaping her Memorial Park-area home — but only after the school's board of regents started investigating allegations of improper spending and made plans to meet Friday to discuss what to do about it.

So how did Slade come to spend public funds on her yard? It was an accident, of course: She said she hired a landscaping firm that often works on campus, and the company ended up sending the bill to TSU instead of to Slade. The university accidentally paid it, and it seems Slade accidentally decided that was OK. Though Slade wrote TSU a check for the accidental landscaping charge, there's still the matter of about $87,000 in home furnishings she also charged to the university without the regents' permission, which officials are also upset about. The board found out about that charge when one of the regents visited Slade's house and complimented her furniture, and Slade said the university paid for most of it. Though the TSU regents apparently don't have to approve contracts of less than $100,000, it seems they would like to have known about the $87,000 worth of furniture — especially since the university doesn't own Slade's house and already gives her $48,000 a year for housing expenses.

Slade has been president of TSU since 1999, when she helped the school fight off state attempts to put it under one of the state university systems because of persistent financial problems. If Houstonist were the type to recognize irony, we're sure we'd be having a really good time right about now.