DBJ: Gov. DeWine appoints two Dayton business leaders to Wright State board

Excerpt

Andrew Platt

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has named new board of trustee members to Wright State University.

They are:

• Marty Grunder of Bellbrook (Greene Co.) has been appointed to the board for a term beginning July 3, 2019, and ending June 30, 2024; and
• Andrew Platt of Xenia (Greene Co.) has been appointed to the board for a term beginning July 3, 2019, and ending June 30, 2028. Platt graduated cum laude from Wright State in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in finance.

Both are well known in the Dayton business community. Grunder is CEO of Grunder Landscaping, a Miamisburg landscaping company is celebrating its 35th year in business.

Marty Grunder

Platt is managing director of Northwestern Mutual Dayton.

Last month, the university named a new board chair in Sean Fitzpatrick.

Wright State recently avoided the state’s fiscal watch, based on U.S. Senate Bill 6’s criteria. The law is designed to increase financial accountability of state colleges and universities by using a set of measures which monitors the fiscal health of campuses, according to according to The Ohio Department of Higher Education.

Ratio analysis is conducted by analyzing a university or college’s expendable net assets, plant debt, total revenues, total operating expenses, total non-operating expenses and change in total net assets. Three ratios are then calculated, broken into a viability ratio, a primary reserve ratio and a net income ratio.

Having a composite score of or below 1.75 for two consecutive years results into an institution being placed on fiscal watch. In 2017, Wright State received a score of 0.08. That same year, the university had expendable assets of $16.9 million and plant debt of $81.8 million.

Fast forward to this year, and the university received a score of 2.2. Its expendable assets grew to $31.2 million and its plant debt lowered to $75.9 million.

The university’s score of 2.2 validates Wright State has put itself on a much firmer financial footing in a short amount of time, compared to a year or two years ago. But, there’s still work to be done moving forward, according to a university spokesperson.

“We are navigating financial recovery, which takes time,” the spokesperson said. “The university has had to make tough choices, and those are rarely easy choices to make or implement, but the steps taken have clearly altered the university’s financial trajectory.”

View the original story at bizjournals.com