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Attendees do the Time Warp again at Rocky Horror Picture Show
Thomas Pederson, Director Civil Rights Compliance & Title IX
Vol. 123 NO. 7
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November 09, 2022
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Photo by Brevin Ross
Scammers impersonate local deputies Omar Benitez Staff Reporter
Two protests in one week march against alleged Title IX violations President Wohlpart addresses drops in enrollment and budget in State of the University Evan Couch News Editor President Jim Wohlpart addressed multiple key points about the university in his annual State of the University and strategic planning exercise on Friday, Nov. 4. Key points covered in the State of the University speech included the current progress on the Vision and Mission for the university, enrollment numbers, budget numbers and more. One of the biggest topics of the State of the University focused around enrollment and how it affects different aspects of the university. According to Wohlpart, it has been three straight years of dropping enrollment. Wohlpart said that fall enrollment for 2022 came in at just under 9,400 students. With the “large” class of 2023 graduating soon, Wohlpart said this will drop the enrollment even lower next year. On the other side of the down numbers, Wohlpart said the current freshman class is up 90 students from last year with 1,550 students. Wohlpart also mentioned that the university will be returning to a recruitment process that they have used in the past where they will hope to retain more students.
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“The reason for this change is that we have shifted our recruitment process from one that is transactional to one that is more relational, working more directly and closely with students, their families, their guidance counselors and even their teachers,” Wohlpart said. Along with the decrease in enrollment, Wohlpart said this has a direct effect on other aspects of the university like the budget. According to Wohlpart, due to the low enrollment and not meeting the built in contingency of 9,900 students, there was a $2.5 million tuition reduction in the final working budget. Wohlpart said to adjust to the decrease in a working budget, they have found ways to balance it through reducing expected expenses. One example given was a decrease in the amount spent on tuition waivers and scholarships. Wohlpart said because the typical $15.5 million used for tuition waivers and scholarships went to $14.4 million due to fewer students, this saved $1.1 million. Wohlpart also said the university is saving about $5.1 million due to unfilled work positions. Wohlpart clarified that these unfilled positions have been that way for a while and are not new reductions in staffing.
Due to low staffing, Wohlpart mentioned that it is happening in all levels of the university, including the executive levels. According to Wohlpart, they have permanently eliminated one of seven vice president positions at the executive level. Wohlpart said they will have an update in the coming months about how they will continue to adjust to the right work size. One key point in the State of the University was the inclusion of the progress for the new Vision and Mission for CWU. Wohlpart talked about the work that went into where they are currently with the Vision and Mission. “While there is urgency in this work, it must be done with intentionality or it will be merely performative,” Wohlpart said. “To be a true learning organization will mean being in uncomfortable spaces together so that we can grow and learn how to do things differently.” Wohlpart also said there is still more work to be done as they head into the next phase where they will create a strategic plan and define values. “While we have challenges ahead of us, together, we will find a pathway through,” Wohlpart said.
Residents of Kittitas County have been experiencing scam calls impersonating Deputy Sheriff Scott Hoffman. According to Kittitas County Sheriff’s Office Inspector Chris Whitsett, the calls impersonating the deputy started around last week and they consisted of threats to try to scam people. “They impersonated the deputy,” Whitsett said. “They were telling citizens that they had a warrant for their arrest or that they’d failed to appear for court. [The people scamming] use a variety of different ways to try to intimidate and coerce people into eventually giving them money.” Whitsett also said this particular scam call hasn’t stopped yet either. According to Whitsett, they were informed that someone received a call as recently as Tuesday Nov. 1. According to Whitsett, the sheriff’s office has had trouble finding leads. “We haven’t developed any leads yet, it’s been a spoofed number from a VoIP”, Whitsett said. “We don’t have any current information on where it’s coming from.” Whitsett also said it’s often a long and difficult process to uncover who and where the scammers are. “You can write warrants to get to an IP address, and write the next warrant to get to the internet provider and then another warrant to get to a VoIP service, and you follow a chain of technological search warrants,” Whitsett said. Even if law enforcement are able to find this information out, they can’t always do something about it. “Ultimately these things are almost always happening in India and Nigeria or other countries where we don’t have any extradition powers or any authority to enforce criminal laws against fraud and theft,” Whitsett said. Whitsett said this is often the case with most international scammers. Even though law enforcement often run into the barrier of international borders, Whitsett said it’s important to prosecute the cases they can. “We have seen cases like that in the U.S.,” Whitsett said. “And we have a much greater chance of prosecuting those cases, and we
have prosecuted some cases.” If caught, these scammers could face charges such as theft, identity theft, impersonation of an officer and several others. Whitsett, who first started back in 2007, said that scam calls are something the sheriff’s office has dealt with for a long time. “I would say in the last five or six years is when it really has become kind of a condition of day to day life,” Whitsett said. “We get calls about telephone based fraud every day, every week, all year long, and that’s been the case for several years now.” Whitsett said that so far no one has been scammed by this call, but other times residents haven’t been as lucky. “We’ve had cases where subjects in our county have lost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Whitsett said. “That was within the last year.” According to Whitsett, older and vulnerable people are often the targets of these scam calls in the county. “It’s infuriating to see these people being taken advantage of in this way,” Whitsett said. “And it happens in our county, tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars every year get taken from people in these ways, that can’t be recovered.” Whitsett said the best way to combat the rise in scam calls is through prevention and the spread of awareness. “We have to try to prevent it through education, and we do that with our community by trying to let them know frequently, ‘Hey, this is still happening. Hey here’s a new form of fraud and theft and coercion,’” Whitsett said. ”We try to build our social media audience to keep everyone updated and build a positive relationship with our community.” The best thing you can do is to stay informed, but even so scam calls can’t be prevented. So what should you do if you receive one? Whitsett advises anyone who receives a call like this to not engage and call KITTCOM. “If somebody claims to be a law enforcement officer in Kittitas County, and they demand money from you, they’re lying,” Whitsett said. “If you have any other reason to doubt who you’re actually talking to, you can always call KITTCOM and be put in contact with us.” You can report scam calls to KITTCOM who can be contacted through (509) 925-8534.