Four days before Murray State University’s top finance officer was placed on administrative leave for the remainder of her contract, President Ron Patterson gave her office a Friday deadline to find a way to fund a slate of athletics construction projects.
“No more going back and forth in an email,” Patterson wrote Monday, Aug. 3 to then-Vice President for Finance and Administrative Services Laura Foltz and two members of her staff. “It is time to execute our shared vision while advancing Murray State University forward.”
The exchange was among hundreds of pages of emails Murray State produced on Aug. 18 in response to an open records request submitted by The Sentinel. It was one piece of a yearlong investigation that began with questions about administrative departures and expanded into an examination of athletics spending, producing 3,819 pages of records since August 2025.
The Aug. 3 exchange began at 10:37 a.m., when Vice President and Director of Athletics Nico Yantko resent revenue projections and presentation materials for several proposed athletics facility projects, saying the goal was to move them from the planning stage into execution.
Yantko said the projects prioritized risk mitigation, recruiting and revenue generation. New LED and digital advertising assets would position Murray State to exceed $2 million in Learfield revenue during the fiscal year. Under the university’s agreement with Learfield, Murray State receives a guaranteed rights fee only in contract years when adjusted gross revenue exceeds $2 million.
Other priority projects included the softball Sandra Hartmann press box and clubhouse, which Yantko characterized as the university’s “greatest Title IX risk,” citing an unidentified 2022 assessment. He also mentioned creating “post-season ready venues” to “drive economic activity to our footprint.”
“These projects represent significant opportunities to generate recurring revenue while enhancing the student-athlete & fan experience and strengthening our long-term commercial strategy,” Yantko wrote.
Among the financing options Yantko identified were bonds. He said he “recently discovered” an additional $5.1 million in bond capacity that had not been issued and suggested leveraging those funds was a viable option for financing the athletics department’s priority projects.
Foltz responded less than an hour later. She noted that Yantko had not been available for a 9 a.m. meeting scheduled that morning and said the meeting had been scheduled “a number of times.”
She also raised questions about how much athletics planned to spend on revenue sharing and “the new negative donor cash balances in orgs from last fiscal year,” writing that the answers would help assess the university’s fiscal capacity. On the bonds, Foltz wrote that Murray State had already issued $15 million, the amount her team indicated the Board of Regents had authorized.
At 12:22 p.m., Patterson, who had been copied on the earlier emails, directed Foltz, Accounting and Financial Services Director Stephanie Jennings and then-Assistant Vice President of Finance Wendy Cain to give Yantko and Senior Associate Athletic Director Brock Rydecki “the best path forward,” such as a campus or inter-institutional loan or third-party financing, “to get these projects done ASAP!”
“The entire purpose of Murray State University (the institution) making these investments in our facilities is to realize future revenue,” Patterson wrote. “These facilities have never been utilized or imagined as revenue generating spaces until now under the current leadership and Board of Regents full support!”
Patterson then asked what needed to go before the board “in three weeks” to continue the investment, ending the question with “end of story.” In boldface, he said he wanted a solution by the close of business Aug. 7.
“No more going back and forth in an email,” he added. “It is time to execute our shared vision while advancing Murray State University forward.”
Two days later, Patterson’s office notified university stakeholders that Foltz would go on leave effective Aug. 7. Internal communications described that Friday as her “last day here at Murray State.”
Cain was named interim vice president for finance and administrative services after Foltz went on leave. At a special called meeting Aug. 11, the Board of Regents elected Cain to replace Foltz as board treasurer.
Later that month, at the board’s regular quarterly meeting, regents authorized issuing up to $5.1 million in general receipts bonds, 2026 series B, with a term of up to 20 years, for athletics facilities. That was the same amount Yantko had described as unissued bond capacity.
The bonds will partially fund a baseball clubhouse and press box expansion and a new softball press box, which will include seating, concessions and restrooms, according to board materials obtained by The Sentinel, and they are to be repaid from departmental revenue generated by premium seat sales, donations and sponsorship advertising.
A spreadsheet attached to Yantko’s email projected revenue from new premium seating at four venues: Roy Stewart Stadium’s Draffen Family Founders Club, Taylor Family Park, the CFSB Center and Leon Owens Field.
The four projects carried a combined $1.6 million in projected annual debt service, while the spreadsheet projected about $1.78 million in revenue at 100% sales. At 90%, projected revenue fell to about $1.6 million – just $3,350 more than the listed debt service – and at 70%, it fell to about $1.25 million, roughly $353,000 short.
Baseball and softball fell short even at 100% sales. Together, the spreadsheet projected $181,000 in annual revenue from those facilities against $350,000 in annual debt service.
The Aug. 18 production also included a spreadsheet tracking the president’s discretionary fund for presidential priorities. It showed about $2.1 million in expenditures to date, including $525,000 for renovations at Stewart Stadium, $68,000 for a video board at Reagan Field, $30,281 for athletics wall pads and $11,823 for an athletics bus wrap.
Under a list of pending commitments, the spreadsheet included $2.128 million in “athletics estimated added funding,” with a notation that the amount was estimated at the athletics department’s fiscal year 2025 budget shortfall. It also listed $92,895.53 for athletics facility upgrades and $100,000 for golf carts and a storage shed, with a note that Rydecki was working with Patterson on the project.
Directly beneath that entry was another note: “Told to hold off on golfcarts.”
Athletics-related items accounted for all but $15,000 of the $2.336 million in pending commitments. The spreadsheet listed a balance of about $2.282 million and noted that the “commitments are larger than balance at this time.”
The $2.128 million figure closely matched the information that first pushed The Sentinel’s reporting toward athletics spending one year earlier.
The Aug. 3 emails were some of the latest records in an investigation that began more than a year earlier, during a wave of leadership changes in Patterson’s first two months as president.
Senior Vice President of Finance and Administrative Services Jackie Dudley announced her retirement in July 2025. Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs Jordan Smith resigned the following month, and days later, the university announced that Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Tim Todd would step down and return to the faculty.
The Sentinel began seeking records surrounding those departures. Records related to Todd included his June performance evaluation, which contained only positive remarks, and communications among Patterson and members of the Board of Regents about a change in academic affairs leadership.
Todd later sued the university for breach of contract, alleging Patterson removed him as provost without just cause and cut his salary by about 55% before his contract expired. The case was settled in February, and its terms were not disclosed.
The reporting expanded beyond personnel matters in September 2025 when The Sentinel received a tip that athletics spending had outpaced available funding by roughly $2 million in FY25 and requested records related to those concerns.
Among the records Murray State produced was a memo from then-Procurement Services Director Beth Ward that questioned whether a proposed agreement with Learfield could bypass the university’s normal competitive bidding process.
Ward concluded Learfield did not qualify as a sole-source provider and recommended the university seek competitive bids. After Ward retired, her successor, Darcie Liddle, reached the same conclusion when the issue resurfaced. Patterson ultimately signed the Learfield agreement without competitive bidding.
The Sentinel later reported on the Learfield agreement and coaches’ compensation, and additional tips followed.
In August, a new wave of personnel turnover reached two of the administrators whose offices had been central to those records. Foltz was placed on leave, as was Liddle, while Interim Human Resources Director Haley Stedelin resigned after declining to deliver Liddle’s leave letter.
The Sentinel continued seeking records explaining the personnel changes while pursuing the broader questions surrounding athletics spending.
Personnel action forms later produced by MSU confirmed Foltz and Liddle were placed on paid leave through June 30, 2027. As a result, the university will pay about $269,640 in salaries in FY26 to two administrators who are not expected to perform any work.
The Sentinel had already sought records broadly related to the employment-status changes involving Foltz, Liddle and Stedelin, including an Aug. 21 follow-up requesting personnel action forms and any other Human Resources records related to those changes. When those productions still did not include a document explaining the terms of Foltz’s leave, The Sentinel made another request for any documents she signed from Aug. 3-7.
Murray State produced routine paperwork, including property disposition forms and cellphone stipend forms, but no severance agreement or other document related to Foltz being placed on leave.
The Sentinel also sought records from state agencies as the investigation expanded through the athletics-spending reporting, the August departures and additional tips received in recent months.
The Kentucky Attorney General’s Office found no records of investigations by any of its divisions involving Murray State throughout Patterson’s term as president, which began July 1, 2025.
Another request to the Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts produced 143 pages of heavily redacted records, many unrelated to Murray State. Among them, however, was an anonymous tip received in May about the bidding of Murray State’s Learfield contract.
The tip itself was redacted, but two attachments were provided: Ward’s July 2025 memo to Patterson, which concluded Learfield did not qualify as a sole-source provider, and Patterson’s November memo designating Learfield a sole source. The Sentinel had already obtained and reported on both documents through its earlier records requests.
The records show the Auditor’s Office had only recently begun acting on the complaint. In a Sept. 10 letter to Dean Dorton, the private CPA firm conducting Murray State’s annual audit, the office forwarded the allegations for review and requested a written response detailing any follow-up and its results. The letter said the merit of the allegations had not yet been determined. An identical letter dated Sept. 18 was also included in the production.
The Auditor’s Office said it would determine whether further investigation was warranted after receiving the CPA firm’s response.
Over the past year, some records requests led directly to new reporting. Others produced little or nothing. Some answered one question and raised several more.
The records showed athletics administrators seeking additional funding, a president setting a deadline for his finance office and a Learfield bidding complaint pending with the State Auditor’s Office.
They have not explained why Foltz and Liddle were placed on leave. Liddle received a letter from General Counsel Robert Miller outlining the terms of her leave. Murray State has produced no comparable document for Foltz.
The Sentinel’s investigation into Murray State athletics remains ongoing.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here