Officials laud idea as creative new funding opportunity
KCJJ Staff
02/28/19
Officials are backing the University of Iowa’s plan to create a public-private partnership for its utility system.
Board of Regents President Mike Richards on Thursday expressed his “strong support” for the plan announced earlier this month, saying UI officials are “being thoughtful and deliberative.”
“Make no mistake, our educational institutions continue to grow and like with any industry, costs continue to rise over time,” Richards said. “We will need additional resources in the future and exploring new ways to find new sources of revenue to add to our existing ones is helpful to all parties. That should be encouraged and applauded.”
Under the proposal, the UI would maintain ownership of its utility system but would seek a third-party to operate it, receiving an upfront payment which would be put in an endowment. How that money would be used has not yet been determined other than to go toward the university’s “core missions.”
The third party would then receive annual payments and tax breaks not available to the university.
UI President Bruce Harreld told the board they still need to find new and creative ways to cover a $14-$16 million gap left after the Regents approved a five-year tuition plan last year.
“To ensure we maximize the use of these new resources, the UI would use our recently-improved and implemented budgeting process to allocate them,” Harreld said. “A good budgeting process needs to be transparent, have clear accountability, be flexible, and connect to the institution’s strategy. Over the past few years, the University of Iowa has been working on implementing just such a budgeting process. It is now fully implemented and while we still have much to learn, the ability for academic leadership to plan and fund long-term activities, strategic initiatives and the like have been substantially enhanced. And most importantly, we can now see where all of our resources are being used.”
Harreld says they are “just at the beginning of a very long process” and are currently at the point of education and discovery. He says they have not yet determined if the public-private partnership is right for the UI or if he will recommend it to the Board.
He also iterated any selected partner would have to commit to the UI’s sustainability goals, which include eliminating coal from the campus by 2025, continuing to explore new bio-fuel sources, and other campus-wide sustainability efforts.
Some information-gathering and sharing sessions with campus stakeholders have already been held and more are scheduled for next week.
A Request for Qualifications is planned to be released on April 1, with possible Board of Regents approval of the idea this fall.