Schumer: Maritime academy needs leader
Seven people have been appointed to an advisory board that will be examining instruction and management at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point. (Feb. 22, 2012) Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Sen. Charles Schumer plans to push federal authorities to speed up the search for a superintendent for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point.
Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to tour the 82-acre campus today with alumni and academy officials and then ask Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who oversees the academy, to focus on addressing issues at the school.
"It's sort of an emergency situation in terms of the need for a leader," Schumer said yesterday.
Superintendent Rear Adm. Philip H. Greene Jr., an academy graduate who was abruptly reassigned in October, was the third superintendent in three years. Shashi Kumar, the academic dean, is the interim superintendent.
Schumer said he would ask that alumni, faculty and students be a part of the selection process.
The Transportation Department advertised the superintendent's opening in February, and Monday is the deadline for applications for the job that pays as much as $179,000 a year, according to the federal government's USAJobs website.
Newsday reported last month that the academy faced a variety of fiscal and operational challenges.
A 2009 Government Accountability Office report found that the school lacked proper financial controls and that $8.1 million in midshipmen fees had been improperly charged to the students. A year later, another federal report concluded that facilities on the campus needed about $300 million in repairs.
In January, 39 students were sent to area hospitals after a carbon monoxide leak in one of the aging barracks.
"If it were a company, somebody would have taken it over," Schumer said of the academy. "The first step is a good manager."
The issues facing the institution are "nothing that a top-notch manager and some resources can't turn around," he said.
LaHood has secured $54 million in the past few years to help with capital needs. On a recent visit to campus, he said he is committed to Kings Point and that a strategic planning process is under way to evaluate the academy's future needs.
