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Money: Compensation could improve dorms
Continued from page 1
said housing officials had been un
der the assumption since 1985 that
student housing money would be
fully compensated for the land.
“There were three instances that
caused me to believe there would
be compensation,” Eyster said,
referring to a 1985 briefing paper
from the University planning office,
a 1990 financial plan prepared
for the University and a 1996
memorandum from Riverfront
Research Park Director Diane Wiley,
all of which he said made mention
of the more than $200,000 that
was to be paid to University
Housing in 2003.
The 1985 briefing paper called for
$223,840 to be paid to University
Housing. The figure increased as
the years went by and interest on
the land was factored in. The 1996
memo set the repayment amount at
$255,090.
University Vice President for Ad
ministration Dan Williams said
there was never a formal agreement
regarding a payment plan between
the research park and the housing
department and that the documents
were merely suggested ideas.
“The problem with that kind of
stuff is once it gets in writing some
place, it somehow becomes truth,”
Williams said.
Williams, who served as Univer
sity Housing Director from 1980-83,
said the thought that full compensa
tion for the land value plus interest
was necessary if the intended use of
the land changes was fueled
by a number of misconceptions
regarding land ownership by
different auxiliary enterprises with
in the University.
“We got a little more careful
about what the rules were that gov
erned us, and we found that we did
not have that obligation at all,”
Williams said.
The legal counsel ruling
In 2003, Melinda Grier, general
counsel to the University, examined
the rules within the Oregon Univer
sity System regarding rededication
of payments.
Wiley said the University was
beginning to take control of proper
ties in the east campus neighborhood
previously managed by University
Housing and said there were
questions that needed to be
answered regarding compensation
and repayment.
Wiley said the ruling stated that
repayment for land transfers within
the University is only required if the
transfers occurred while state bonds
were still being repaid.
Once all bonds have been repaid,
“if rededication or re-change of use
happened after that point in time,
there was no compensation due,”
Wiley said.
Wiley said she was asked after
the ruling was made to recalculate
the payment plan for the Riverfront
Research Park and came up with the
$34,746 figure. That figure was cal
culated using 1989 as the year that
use of the land changed and com
pensation requirements began,
which left five to seven years of out
standing bonds awaiting repay
ment, Wiley said.
Although auxiliaries such as Uni
versity Housing operate independ
ently, Williams said they are not
completely separate from the
University and must sometimes
make sacrifices for the greater good
of the institution.
“Essentially, no unit or sub-unit
of the University can become an
owner,” Williams said. “The fact
that revenues came from the hous
ing department didn’t give the
housing department ownership.”
Disagreeing over changes
Housing Director Eyster said he
recognizes the validity of a legal
counsel opinion, but he questioned
the fairness of retroactively applying
a newly discovered rule to an agree
ment that had been in existence for
more than a decade.
“It seems to me that there’s some
thing that’s not fair about it, partic
ularly when you consider that it
was a relatively small part of the
student body that financed this and
the benefit is now intended for the
entire campus,” Eyster said.
Vice President for Administration
Williams said fairness is an impor
tant thing to consider when making
repayment plans, but it is not rea
sonable to expect the University to
repay auxiliaries the total cost of the
land plus interest when the Oregon
University System rules do not
require that.
“We probably would have spared
everybody a lot of grief about all
this if we had realized that earlier
on,” Williams said.
Truman Baird, a former facilities
director for the University, said it
was a common practice during his
time at the University for auxiliaries
to trade parcels of land with
each other to compensate for
different acquisitions.
may not legally be required to repay
housing for the Riverfront Research
Park, he “would think that they
would want to do something for
housing because housing never did
get any use for that land.”
Marge Ramey, who served as Uni
versity Housing Director from 1983
1991, said the rededication of pay
ments for the Riverfront Research
Park was often discussed during her
time as director.
“I felt very strongly about it at the
time, and still do, that it was hous
ing money — student money — and
it needs to be repaid,” Ramey said.
“It wasn’t public money that was
used; it was the students’ money.”
Williams said the repayment plan
originally drafted by the planning
office was based on a “pretty seri
ous misunderstanding” of what the
requirements are for rededication
and repayment.
He said it is very important to
keep in mind that student housing
money is not the same as student
incidental fee money.
“It would be one matter if the stu
dent incidental fee was used in ac
quisitions and transfer of owner
ship, but in the housing department
students pay room and board, and
they get services in return, and if
there’s excess revenue after that,
then the department can use it (for
other purposes),” Williams said.
But Eyster said the financial prob
lems plaguing the housing depart
ment mean any amount of money it
could receive would be a valuable
addition to the budget.
“Timely compensation for that
property would go a long way toward
modernizing our seriously out-of-date
residence halls, which are currently
rated No. 1 in the nation as ‘dorms like
dungeons,”’ Eyster wrote in an e-mail
statement. The University’s residence
halls ranked No. 1 in the Princeton
Review’s “dorms like dungeons”
category last year.
Working to agree
Riverfront Research Park Director
Wiley said her role in the process has
been limited to making calculations
and that University Housing’s dis
agreement with the new compensa
tion amount is “going to have to be
dealt with administratively.”
Two other auxiliary enterprises
were mentioned as needing compen
sation in the 1985 briefing paper, but
no record of what happened to the
plan could be obtained.
According to the paper, student
building fees were to be repaid
$345,000 and the parking auxiliary
was to receive $242,341 for land
near the Riverfront Research Park
referred to in the document as the
Eugene Sand and Gravel tract and
now used as playing fields “to
accommodate its use for general
institution purposes.”
Department of Public Safety
Interim Director Tom Hicks,
who oversees the parking auxiliary,
said he does not know anything
about the compensation plan.
He recalled an incident in the
early ’90s in which parking
fees were used to purchase an
off-campus building, but he said
the money was repaid just a few
years later.
Vice President for Student Affairs
Anne Leavitt, who oversees student
building fees, was also unaware of
the compensation plan.
Williams said he does not know
the specifics of the plan. He said it
may be possible that the compensa
tion had taken place but said if it
hadn’t, it was no longer relevant be
cause the plan was based on a
faulty assumption that legal counsel
has cleared up.
“You can’t lose sight of the fact
that sometimes individual depart
ments have to subordinate their
self-interests for the greater good of
the institution,” Williams said.
But Eyster stressed the impor
tance of compensating the student
housing money and sticking to the
original agreement.
“A year or so ago I was offered ...
I think $30,000 to settle the matter,
and I just said that my understand
ing is that we agreed on a formula
and that the formula’s been
recalculated three times and
that the last time that it was
calculated it was, I believe,
over $250,000. From my perspective
that’s what’s due,” Eyster said.
Leavitt said she was familiar with
University Housing’s concerns re
garding the rededication of
payments and has been involved in
the discussions between Eyster and
Williams since taking on the
position of vice president for
student affairs.
Leavitt said she and other Univer
sity officials have “talked about how
useful it would be to have this
sorted out.”
“It’s been an outstanding issue
really longer than I’ve been working
directly with housing,” Leavitt said.
Williams said finalizing a repay
ment plan between University
Housing and the Riverfront Re
search Park is one of the things he
hopes to accomplish before he re
tires at the end of term.
“I’m sure there will be some com
pensation for the housing depart
ment, but it will certainly not begin
to approach what (was originally
planned),” Williams said.
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