What's the yellow flag mean? Underneath it says "Audit identified a deficiency in internal financial or governance controls that could limit the organization's ability to track and report financial data reliably. The deficiency is less severe than a material weakness but warrants attention from management" |
The audit report is available for download on the same page. You can download and read it. It's not that exciting, though. |
I know, but I'm not an accountant and don't understand how think tanks work. Are these flags a normal occurence for these kinds of places? |
RAND leadership is succeeding in the difficult maneuver of setting money on fire while simultaneously high-fiving their sponsors goodbye and tripping over a pile of pink slips right in front of a news camera. This success demands a high salary! |
| Good one ☝️! |
Mitre must have the most amazing HR department in the history of ffrdcs, the director makes $1.5 million. And the mitre CEO makes $3 million and has to file a conflict of interest report because he has multiple nepo relatives at the company, including one who makes $341,000! https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/42239742/202443199349317359/IRS990ScheduleL |
RAND's audit reveals surprising holdings: swaps, private equity, and foreign real estate. Odd for a nonprofit. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_audit/2024-09-GSAFAC-0000354403 |
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FFRDCs are a grift!
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The prev post should say foreign investments not real estate. RAND operates foreign subsidiaries so it’s not that odd. The $46M of investments in Central America and the Caribbean is weird, but maybe that is normal for Mitre and others?? |
With salaries like these, it explains their self-preservation at any cost. |
Two views exist. One is the idea that seasoned leaders secretly mismanaged RAND for decades despite delivering years of steady growth while maintaining a strong brand (including during Trump’s first term). This view is absurd. The second view is the brutal truth that an unqualified CEO, with zero experience running a large organization, took reckless risks at the worst possible moment. This rapid collapse isn't a legacy issue; it is the direct result of current, gross incompetence. RAND’s current CEO will try hard to reframe the first view but the second is clearly supported by the evidence at hand. |
You do realize that Rand sells expert labor, not Salesforce admin support? |
A third possible view is that the current RAND leadership do NOT want to run an FFRDC, but instead want to transform RAND into an independent think-tank (such as Brookings, Heritage, CSBA, PEW, or whichever else) that is not reliant on Federal funding. This also seems consistent with the externally visible facts. |
Doesn't RAND get almost all of its funding from the Federal government? That's like the CEO of Ford deciding to ditch the car business to make sneakers. |
Does current leadership know that RAND operates multiple FFRDCs? If leaders wanted to lead Brookings, Heritage, Pew, or CSET they should have applied for a leadership job at those places. |