"We have a high rate of confidence that these improvements will be satisfactory," said Mark Spencer, interim director for UHEAA. "No single person has universal access to the system as was the case previously."

When the UESP trust was set up in 1996, it started small and it was "useful" to give the fund director full access. "It turned out to be a bad decision," Spencer said.

The $790 million UESP trust now has more than 48,000 accounts and has been called one of the nation's top 529 college savings plans by the Washington-based mutual fund rating agency Morningstar Inc.

The new UESP director, Lynne Ward, currently the deputy chief of staff to Gov. Olene Walker, will take over part time on Oct. 1 and then full time on Jan. 3, 2005. It is likely a newly elected Utah governor would have named a replacement for Ward.

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com