State Representative Bill Dunn requested, in June 2003, that the State Joint Fiscal Review Committee look into the matter of President Shumaker’s use of the UT plane. Dunn questioned a March 9 trip Shumaker made from Birmingham to Little Rock with Carol Garrison, president of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who had been provost at the University of Louisville when Shumaker was president. The plane went from Knoxville to Birmingham, where it picked up Shumaker and Garrison and took them to Little Rock for the Women’s SEC basketball tournament. Hours later, the plane returned them to Birmingham and returned from Birmingham to Knoxville empty. On the following day, the plane returned to Birmingham, picked up Shumaker, and flew him to Knoxville and then to Nashville.
Flight manifests showed that Shumaker had landed in Birmingham nine times in the UT plane since November 1, 2002, and had taken off in the UT plane twelve times from Birmingham during the same period. Shumaker contended that none of the trips were for personal business—flights to Louisville related to his divorce proceedings and to Birmingham to visit Carol Garrison. UT policy allowed “spouses and guests” to travel on the plane as well as invited guests of UT involved in official functions of or on behalf of the university. The decisions upon which guests were permissible rested with the president.
In July, Governor Phil Bredesen asked Shumaker personally to pay back the university for “questionable” flights made on the UT plane. On July 11 Shumaker reimbursed UT for $5,134 in commercial flights and other expenses and $124 for phone calls made from his office. The board of trustees’ Executive Committee issued a press release strongly supporting Shumaker, saying that the members believed that he had at all times followed university policy. On July 18 Shumaker announced he would repay UT $24,600 for 25 flights in the UT plane to Birmingham, Louisville, and “any other trips that included the slightest personal or family business, such as travel related to [his] move to Knoxville.” A telephone was installed in the UT plane ($19,746.25 and a monthly fee of $499.95).