Authement's not as financially responsible as we're led to believe

For all the talk about how Authement will hand over the reins of UL to his successor debt free (which is a good thing for the most part), perhaps being in a little bit of debt would have saved the university millions in the long run.

I started at UL in the spring of '03. In the fall of '02 semester, the student body voted to build UL's Intramural facitlity, Bourgeois Hall, a new state of the art weight room. That was five years ago and they have yet to break ground. The bids went out and the quote was 2.1 million. The cost was going to be funded through student assessed fees. According to Authement's policy, the money would be collected and stored in an account until enough money was in there to cover the entire cost of the project. Sounds good right?

Problem number 1
This means that the students who voted on the bill will never be able to use the facility. In fact, the students who passed the proposition are now long gone, and the university still hasn't broke ground on the project.

Problem number 2
The cost of supplies saw a slight, but natural increase during the first two years of saving. To compensate, the plans for the weightroom were changed from two full floors, to one and a half.

Problem number 3
In the summer of 2007 I was told by the Director of Intramurals that they had finally saved up all 2.1 million needed to cover costs of the project. It looked like the weight room would finally be a reality. A few weeks later, the director recieved a devestating letter from Authement. The letter stated that due to the hurricanes, prices of building materials had skyrocketed. Thus the new estimated cost for the project was now 5.4 million dollars. A more than 100% increase.

Conclusion

Had Authement taken out a loan for the project in the beginning, the project could have been built as a full two story, state of the art weightroom, for 2.1 million plus interest - let's say 500,000. Now, not only was the project only going to be 1 and a half stories (an extended balcony not a full 2nd floor), but it was going to cost 2.3 million dollars more to build.

The university is debt free, but at what cost? The university would have paid more in interest in the short run, but would have saved millions of dollars in the long run had we just taken on a little bit of debt. Not only would they have saved all that money, but the original students who voted on the project would have actually gotten to use it and the debt would have been payed off by next month. Now we'll be waiting another 3-5 years for this project. Students have become apathetic. Why vote on anything new, when they'll probably never see it much less get to use it? Debt free doesn't always equal financial responsibility.

When you are talking about having to construct anything, whether it is an out-house or a state-of-the art facility, it is rediculous to think that you will pay the amounts that are bidded out. This is the same problem with many of our road projects. By bidding them out now, you are not getting a true assessment of what they will cost in 2 years by the time they actually begin. This is true for this situation.

It's pretty stupid to not have, at least, a large portion of the funds available at the time the bids are complete and so you can begin soon. If you got a bid to build your dream home 5 years ago but for some reason had to hold off, that contractor would laugh at you if you expected to build for that same price 5 years later. Everything goes up, especially concrete which has gone up about $40/yard over the past few years. It's rediculous.

so sad, but i gotta say i'm not in the LEAST BIT surprised! thank heavens that bozo is gone!

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Originally Posted by zephyr

_ When you are talking about having to construct anything, whether it is an out-house or a state-of-the art facility, it is rediculous to think that you will pay the amounts that are bidded out. This is the same problem with many of our road projects. By bidding them out now, you are not getting a true assessment of what they will cost in 2 years by the time they actually begin. This is true for this situation.

It's pretty stupid to not have, at least, a large portion of the funds available at the time the bids are complete and so you can begin soon. If you got a bid to build your dream home 5 years ago but for some reason had to hold off, that contractor would laugh at you if you expected to build for that same price 5 years later. Everything goes up, especially concrete which has gone up about $40/yard over the past few years. It's rediculous. _

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I'm not saying that they should have started immediately, but I am saying that saving up the full amount has cost them big time. I agree that you should save up an put down a good size down payment, but I deal with students who come up to me everyday who are fed up with this university's lack of getting things moving. I'm telling you as a person who deals with students coming in to my office everyday and complaining, we are losing alot of potential future boosters because of this. They are tired of being promised things and never seing them and they feel like the university isn't giving them anything so why should they give back later. I'm not saying they are right, I mean they are getting a degree from a respected institution. But I do understand why they feel that way and how their discontentment can and probably will negatively impact university support in the future.

Kal,

I paid for the weight room addition and the student union renovations that are supposed to occur. Yet still I see no improvments to the union. When will that occur?

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Originally Posted by RaginCajun77

_ Kal,

I paid for the weight room addition and the student union renovations that are supposed to occur. Yet still I see no improvments to the union. When will that occur? _

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Well, I work with the Intramurals program so I don't know much about the union business. But here's what I do know about it. The plan for the project includes not just the renovations to the union, but also to try and connect all the buildings around the swamp. This means some buildings like corona and olivier hall will be torn down and rebuilt. Other buildings will be added onto to provide more room and help encircle the swamp. The idea is to try and get most of the offices like financial aid and other stuff in one convenient location. That's what the main goal of the union renovations are. Not only to expand it, but to make it more functional. Because let's face it, the union is not the center of attraction that it should be.

The honors building (burke-hawthorne hall I believe) is already being renovated and expanded on the east side. This began at the beginning of the fall semester. I think this is stage one of the project. My guess is that the plan is going to be followed as long or should I say as best as can be due to rising building costs. I have to admit that the plans sound and look wonderful. Will it all come to fruition? That is anybody's guess.

By the way, if any of you have ever had any classes in Girard Hall (better known as BFE) you will be happy to know that that building has received approval for renovations as well. If you've ever had a class on the second or third floors you know how horrible it is. 150 kids in a Psych 312 class this semester on the third floor and they had no working A/C for the entire semester. It was aweful, the professor had to go to Walgreen's and purchase 2 box fans out of her own pocket just so that the students could take notes without sweat soaked notebooks. Even then it did little to solve the problem.

PS. I know some of you old timers are saying, "No A/C? So what? When I was your age......" We know. We know. 12 miles to school, barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways, etc, etc. But come on this is a university and it's 2008.

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Originally Posted by Kal

The honors building (burke-hawthorne hall I believe) is already being renovated and expanded on the east side. This began at the beginning of the fall semester. I think this is stage one of the project. My guess is that the plan is going to be followed as long or should I say as best as can be due to rising building costs. I have to admit that the plans sound and look wonderful. Will it all come to fruition? That is anybody's guess.

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I believe the burke hall renovation was on the books for something like 20 years, just to give some perspective on what to expect from other projects. But I'm with you, I started in the fall of '02 and we talked about how laughable the whole weight room thing was because every semester we heard the same "next semester" speech.

Youre missing the entire point of capital outlay for a government. Not only does the money have to be collected, the project bid out, ad ran for x number of days before bids are closed, bids evaluated and then accepted, then there are the variables. Change in cost, change in government leaders, I can go on for days. I worked for the university for 7 years, and I just finished my first year as a governmental auditor, and I can tell ya this is not an isolated incident. This happens at every level of government because of the restrictions and lack of funding. Sure they probably had the money, something more important just came up. The student union fund has money in it, its just not enough and things keep coming up and they keep having to take the money out of that special revenue fund. Authement did a good job not putting us in debt, so in the position we are in now and with prices the way they are, debt might not be something we want to get into. Anyways, the moral of the story, dont be suckered into student assessed fees unless you know what youre getting yourself into.

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Originally Posted by cajunhawk

_ Youre missing the entire point of capital outlay for a government. Not only does the money have to be collected, the project bid out, ad ran for x number of days before bids are closed, bids evaluated and then accepted, then there are the variables. Change in cost, change in government leaders, I can go on for days. I worked for the university for 7 years, and I just finished my first year as a governmental auditor, and I can tell ya this is not an isolated incident. This happens at every level of government because of the restrictions and lack of funding. Sure they probably had the money, something more important just came up. The student union fund has money in it, its just not enough and things keep coming up and they keep having to take the money out of that special revenue fund. Authement did a good job not putting us in debt, so in the position we are in now and with prices the way they are, debt might not be something we want to get into. Anyways, the moral of the story, dont be suckered into student assessed fees unless you know what youre getting yourself into. _

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I think an "investment" every student can make to his soon to be alma mater helps him in the end, even if he isn't around to personally enjoy the benefit, by making it better for generations to come. Adding to the wealth of the university can make his education look more prestigious so it helps. Perhaps times will get better for projects such as the ones that are the subject of this thread.

My wife graduated from the May 1984 University of Louisiana class and she paid something like $33 for a laminated UL to be handed out later. There was a stipulation that if the name change was reversed a refund would be issued. Of course the name change was reversed by the politicians later on and no refund was issued. The name was changed again in 1999 and neither she nor any 1984 class member who paid the fee ever received the laminated diploma promised. But the offering of this diploma was well intentioned and it would hurt the university if they were forced to cough up the $33 per person.

On a shoestring budget, the university is doing the best it can. I think we get impatient with UL and Dr. Authement in particular because of the handling of athletics. He inherited a 0-10 football program and a basketball program that had just been handed the death penalty. Anyone would be paranoid inheriting a situation like that, but he never got over it and never gave the athletic department the ability to raise its own money unmolested. There is hope for the future because Dr. Savoie is inheriting an athletic department that is so handcuffed it can't operate. If he is similarly paranoid about that, I think we can look forward to some real growth.