UC ‘Halts Spending, Construction,’ While Enquirer Discovers Zimpher’s and Buchanan’s Existence

So the University of Cincinnati has hit the figurative, and literal, wall (HT to Doug Ross via e-mail):

A decade-long building boom at the University of Cincinnati is coming to an end.

Faced with accumulated deficits of about $155 million and cutting costs all around campus, UC has decided not to construct more buildings or contribute cash to neighborhood development projects until it figures a way out of its fiscal woes.

UC officials say the building projects, including popular places such as the Varsity Village complex and the MainStreet recreation center, were worth it to attract students, faculty and research funds. They also say they have helped improve neighborhoods surrounding the main campus, but projects depending on UC funds will be delayed.

….. The bottom line: As about 36,500 students start classes this week, the region’s largest university and biggest employer still has at least two years to go in executing a turnaround plan that will cut costs and increase pressure for more revenue in departments as wide-ranging as athletics and campus services.

….. UC’s top officials hope that will stop the bleeding from a decade of spending that has built up $1.2 billion in debt, with payments taking up about 7 percent of the university’s budget. This year, it cut $27 million to close a budget gap, including eliminating more than 100 jobs.

This would appear to mean, among other things, that the once-prosperous area south of campus between Calhoun and McMillan that was taken by eminent domain and leveled, only to have the taking ruled illegal (unfortunately after-the-fact, under then-applicable Ohio law), will earn its BizzyBlog nickname, “The Grassy Knoll,” for some time.

Back in March, Cliff Peale, the author of today’s report, called the consortium of neighborhood development projects “a development powerhouse.” How could he not have known that the statement wasn’t true then, as it obviously isn’t now?

Two heretofore virtually unrecognized names in reports about UC’s financial situation appeared in today’s Enquirer story:

UC trustees have supported President Nancy Zimpher’s budget-cutting program and say she is correcting problems that were in place before she arrived in 2003.

“The most important thing is that the administration and the board faced it head-on,” board member Buck Niehoff said. Enquirer President and Publisher Margaret Buchanan is one of nine UC trustees.

Well, at least Buchanan didn’t try to say that Zimpher, whom the Enquirer strangely deemed unquoteworthy, “faced it head-on.”

I wonder if someone’s nagging about Zimpher’s lack of association with UC’s financial troubles, even though she supposedly runs the place, and about a certain newspaper publisher’s usually-undisclosed presence on the Board of Trustees, had anything to do with the sudden appearance of these two former mystery women?

That’s not important. What is important is that the Enquirer is still giving Zimpher a 3-1/2 year pass on her tenure. That would be like the press covering a presidential incumbent continuing to blame the state of the economy on his predecessor four months before the next election.

The school’s trustees have gone well beyond the free-pass point, giving Zimpher a $30,000 bonus and an 8% raise.

The University, its students, its employees, the city, and the metro area deserve better.