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Ohio University Board Of Trustees To Meet Thursday
By: Atish Baidya
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Ohio University officials are expected to recommend the university not issue an additional $100 million in debt as part of the school’s six-year capital improvement plan at the upcoming Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday.
In a memo to OU’s president and the Board, Stephen Golding, vice-president for finance and administration said issuing tax-exempt debt in increments over the next five years would be less disruptive to the OU’s credit rating.
“The determination of when to issue debt and how much is a complex decision based on how fast we can do the program and a cost-benefit analysis of using taxable debt versus tax-exempt debt,” Golding wrote.
Golding said spreading the projects over five years is a better approach considering “the campus cannot sustain this level of work in a concentrated period of time due to campus congestion, staffing and swing space availability.”
Officials are also expected to recommend the establishment of the Undergraduate Scholarship Investment Program quasi-endowment.
OU will be dedicating $25 million to strengthening the endowed scholarship program.
In a memo to the Board of Trustees, Golding described quasi-endowments as “financial instruments established by a governing board using unrestricted operating reserves that are intended to function like an endowment, including pooled investment of the funds within typical endowment asset allocation.”
The Board of Trustees will meet on Thursday and Friday on the campus of Columbus State Community College.