NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Saturday, January 9, 2021
EOU’s president sees windfall as pandemic degrades enrollment
Tom Insko awarded
two bonuses by
board of trustees
By KALEB LAY
La Grande Observer
LA GRANDE — As 2020
closed out on a year of declining
enrollment and tuition revenue for
many of Oregon’s public univer-
sities, Eastern Oregon University
in La Grande opted to increase
President Tom Insko’s salary and
to award him $22,500 in year-end
bonuses.
The EOU Board of Trustees
on Nov. 12, 2020, approved two
bonuses for Insko: a $7,500 “goal
attainment award” and a $15,000
“meritorious achievement award.”
The trustees also awarded Insko
a 2.6% increase
to his roughly
$250,000 salary.
The move came
even as year-over-
year enrollment
declined at EOU
in 2020 — a trend
universities across
Insko
the state and the
country have experienced due to
the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to fact sheets from
the university’s website, on-campus
enrollment from fall 2019 to fall
2020 fell by 10.8%, from 1,508 to
1,345 students. Off-campus enroll-
ment also fell from 1,246 to 1,153
students — a drop of more than 7%.
Kaleb Lay/La Grande Observer
A bench sits unoccupied on the campus of Eastern Oregon University on
the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. Despite declining enrollment
due to the pandemic, EOU recently granted its president, Tom Insko,
$22,500 in bonuses and a 2.6% increase to his roughly $250,000 salary.
expected to be fl at from fall 2020 as
well, according to EOU’s vice pres-
ident for university advancement,
Tim Seydel.
EOU Board of Trustees Chair-
Eastern also recorded declines
in overall enrollment for both full-
and part-time students from fall
2019 to fall 2020 terms. Enroll-
ment for the coming semester was
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
man Richard Chaves credited
Insko’s leadership, saying he’d
been instrumental in minimiz-
ing damage from the COVID-19
pandemic as well as shoring up
the university’s fi nancial position
during recent years.
“Today, even having gone
through the pandemic this last year,
EOU is in the strongest fi nancial
position in the history of EOU,”
Chaves said.
He went on to say EOU has
fared far better than other universi-
ties through the pandemic, many of
which have had to cut programs or
lay off employees due to decreased
revenue.
“If you look at EOU, we have
not had to take those kind of dras-
tic measures,” Chaves said. “In
fact, we haven’t had any permanent
layoffs, except one, which was due
to the closure of our copy center,
and that was planned before the
pandemic hit.”
Chaves said while he couldn’t
speak on the full board’s behalf, its
members generally “felt that presi-
dent Insko was performing beyond
what he was being paid, especially
in comparison with most other
universities in the state.”
To illustrate that point, Chaves
pointed out Insko had turned down
bonuses offered to him by the board
in prior years. He also noted East-
ern’s faculty and administrative
professionals had received raises
of more than 3%, and workers
with the Service Employees Inter-
national Union, which represents
public sector employees, received
World’s largest plant for nuclear waste
cleanup at Hanford ready for startup
By ANNETTE CARY
Tri-City Herald
Some sun
Cloudy and
seasonably cool
Cloudy
Cloudy, a shower
in the p.m.
Cloudy
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
40° 30°
44° 32°
45° 35°
52° 44°
55° 41°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
43° 32°
43° 30°
43° 37°
49° 42°
OREGON FORECAST
56° 37°
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
45/41
Kennewick Walla Walla
42/33
Lewiston
45/40
44/34
Astoria
49/43
39/31
40/32
Longview
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Pullman
Yakima 41/33
43/37
44/34
Portland
Hermiston
48/40
The Dalles 43/32
Salem
Corvallis
43/36
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
38/30
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
45/38
39/27
39/25
Ontario
41/30
40/26
32/18
0.15"
0.30"
0.32"
0.30"
Trace
0.32"
WINDS (in mph)
Caldwell
Burns
41°
29°
40°
28°
65° (2002) -20° (1937)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
43/37
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 37/28
43/36
0.09"
0.35"
0.46"
0.35"
0.15"
0.46"
HERMISTON
Enterprise
40/30
41/35
37°
30°
41°
27°
65° (1933) -14° (1937)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
44/36
Aberdeen
37/30
36/31
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
47/40
Today
Medford
46/35
RICHLAND, Wash. —
After more than 18 years,
construction is finished
on the key parts of the $17
billion Hanford vitrifi cation
plant that will be needed for
initial treatment of radioac-
tive waste.
Building the world’s larg-
est plant to treat radioactive
waste is “truly a scientifi c and
engineering feat,”said Sen.
Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.,
in taped remarks played at a
Wednesday, Jan. 6, ceremony
announcing the accomplish-
ment.
“This is an unprecedented
step toward cleaning up the
most toxic site in the United
States ... and restoring the
Hanford site to return it to
the community,” she said.
Mark Menezes, deputy
secretary for energy, was at
Hanford for the announce-
ment and said it “marks a
tremendous leap forward for
the Hanford workforce and
the Tri-Cities community.”
“Hanford is on the
precipice of actual tank
waste treatment,” he said.
“Decades of hard work are
paying off.”
T he Depar t ment of
Energy and its contractor
Bechtel National now will
spend the next three years
starting up all the systems
needed to treat low activity
radioactive waste, and then
practice operating the plant
with a nonradioactive waste
simulant.
The vitrifi cation plant, or
Waste Treatment Plant, is
planned to treat much of the
56 million gallons of radio-
active and hazardous chem-
ical waste in underground
tanks at the Hanford nuclear
reservation in Eastern Wash-
ington.
The Hanford site was used
ESE 3-6
SE 4-8
IN BRIEF
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
36/24
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2021
7:35 a.m.
4:30 p.m.
3:54 a.m.
1:25 p.m.
New
First
Full
Last
Jan 12
Jan 20
Jan 28
Feb 4
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Anthony Lakes
offers free opportunity to
older grade-schoolers
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 79° in Van Nuys, Calif. Low -15° in Crested Butte, Colo.
from World War II through
the Cold War to produce
two-thirds of the plutonium
for the nation’s nuclear weap-
ons program.
Construction started at
the plant in 2002, with a
deadline set by the federal
court in 2016 requiring DOE
to start treating radioactive
waste at the plant by the end
of 2023. The court recently
agreed to give DOE at least
eight more months to start
treating waste because of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
All but about 10% of the
workers at the nuclear reser-
vation were sent home in late
April 2020, with work done
by telecommuting when
possible, to help contain the
spread of the coronavirus.
Workers area returning to
on-site work in phases.
But Brian Vance, the
DOE Hanford manager, said
he believes waste treatment
still will start in 2023.
Sun.
NNE 4-8
NNE 4-8
Boardman
Pendleton
a 6.85% bonus.
But that did not stop the union’s
local are of SEIU 503 from voicing
its displeasure with Insko’s wind-
fall in a recent press release.
“Part of the reason that the
universities were unable to main-
tain full staffi ng was a lack of reve-
nue in the form of tuition,” SEIU
503 said. “That is why it was so
frustrating to see Eastern Oregon
University announce that it will be
giving its President, Tom Insko,
a $22,500 end of the year bonus,
which is on top of his $250,351
salary. That is more than fi ve times
the average salary of a Classifi ed
employee.”
In fact, Insko’s $22,500 in
bonuses represent more than a
signifi cant portion of people in La
Grande earn in a year, coming in
at more than half the city’s median
annual income.
According to the city of La
Grande’s 2019 housing needs anal-
ysis, median local income in 2017
was just $40,750, which was nearly
$16,000 below the statewide aver-
age.
The analysis also found nearly
two in fi ve people in La Grande
earned less than $30,000 per year
in 2017, before the economic hard-
ship of the COVID-19 pandemic
struck.
Eastern Oregon Universi-
ty’s presidential annual salary of
$250,351 is more than six times the
median income in La Grande and
29% more than the median price of
a home in the city in 2019, as listed
by the housing needs report.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
NORTH POWDER — Learn to ski or
snowboard for free.
An opportunity for fi fth- and sixth-grad-
ers will be given at Anthony Lakes Mountain
Resort starting Sunday, Jan. 10.
Free ski and snowboard lessons will be
given to all fi fth- and sixth-graders every
Sunday starting Jan. 10 and running through
Feb. 28. Children will be given free ski and
snowboard rentals to be used for skiing and
snowboarding throughout the day.
After receiving a free lesson each Sunday,
children will be given a free ski lift pass they
can use for the rest of that day .
Students must register each Sunday at
the Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort’s ticket
booth between 8:30 a.m. and 9:45 a.m before
receiving their free lesson. Children should
bring identifi cation from their school or their
report card, according to an Anthony Lakes
press release.
Later in the year, there is a possibility that
students will be able to register online rather
than at the ticket booth.
Adults who want to accompany the fi fth-
and sixth-graders on the ski slope after their
lessons will be sold lift tickets for $25, which
is less than what is normally charged.
The families of the children who attend
at least seven of the eight free instructional
sessions will have a chance to purchase a ski
lift pass for their children for the remainder
of the ski season for $150, a price discounted
signifi cantly. The Anthony Lakes ski season
normally runs well into March.
— EO Media Group
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