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(March 31, 2009) "Dr. Saunders, You are Cleared for Takeoff" Another Look at the Expense Associated with Saunders' Plane I pulled your reader's analysis of USM President Martha Saunders' decision to lease a Beechcraft King Air turbo-prop airplane in 2009, in the midst of multi-million dollar budget shortfalls facing the University, off of your website. I wanted to complete his or her brief analysis of the costs associated with that plane, which was purchased by the USM Foundation and is being leased to USM, is costing Mississippi taxpayers $31,500 per month, based on a 5-year lease (60 months) agreement at $1.89 million.

(April 1, 2009) Dear USMNEWS.net Like your last reader did with the first analysis of USM President Martha Saunders’ plane, I pulled your last reader's analysis and ran with it. Really, all I had to do was add the final March 31st return to Hattiesburg from Manassas to complete that reader’s analysis of the plane’s use during February and March of this year.

(June 2, 2009) Extravagance Grounded Using the type of analysis offered by a USMNEWS.net reader, the April-09 Air Farce One trips to Columbus and Madison cost MS taxpayers $15,750 each, not including the salary and fringes of the pilot or the cost of fuel. The May-09 trip to Macon, GA, cost MS taxpayers an additional $31,500, again not including the salary and fringes of the pilot or the cost of fuel.

(June 8, 2009) Palmer by Land, Saunders by Air Outgoing coach Corky Palmer and his 2009 USM Golden Eagles are to be congratulated for winning the Atlanta Regional (over host Georgia Tech) and heading to the school's first-ever Super Regional. A large contingent of USM fans met the conquering heroes at the baseball stadium upon their return, and rightly so.

(July 27, 2009) Frivolous Expenditures Are Bad PR Given President Saunders’ extensive education in communications and public relations, I would expect that she would have refrained from purchasing a two million dollar plane at the onset of a recession. If she didn’t know the probable impact of a recession, an advisor should have told her to expect that state revenues, and therefore funding to state schools, would decline.

(July 28, 2009) It's Simple . . . Martha's Plane May Cost Jobs A Guest Editorial by Victoria Tyler Maybe, just maybe, as a result of USM president Martha Saunders' decision to spend $2 million in taxpayer funds to lease a Beechcraft plane, there's a pilot out there who is now considering membership in the Hattiesburg Country Club. That's nice. However, there are at least seven CoAL faculty out there now, some tenured, who can blame Saunders for their terminal contracts, should they come as expected on 1-Sept-09, that are the result of financial exigencies.