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Wednesday; apri! 30, 1075 lincoln, nebraska vol. 98 no. 120
SUN, field house win early tax support bids
By Lori Demo ,,
The new UNL field house and the State University
of Nebraska (SUN) project Monday won round one in
their bids for state tax support when the Unicameral's
Appropriations Committee approved money for
them.
However, while the two appropriations are being
sent to the floor of the Legislature, the Athletic
Department must face the scrutiny of an
appropriations subcommittee that has been formed to
look into the department's fiscal operations.
The Appropriations Committee approved for
consideration to the floor $200,000 for operation of
the new field house on an 8-1 vote, and $125,000 for
delivery of SUN courses to enrollees on a 5-2 vote.
Both votes were reconsiderations of the
committee's decision last week to finance the two
only with self-generated cash or revolving funds.
. Money must be spent
The money for operation of the field house is in
addition to the $25O,OO0-$50,000 in cash funds
from renting the field house and $200,000 from the
revolving fund of the Athletic Department's
programs-that the Committee approved last week.
According to terms of the appropriations, the cash
and revolving fund money must be spent before the
tax money can be spent.
Committee Chairman Richard Marvel of Hastings
was the lone dissenter on the field house vote and was
joined by Sidney Sen. Robert Clark in voting against
the SUN appropriation.
Marvel said the problem with the $12,000 field
house, construction of which is to be financed by a
special tax on cigarets, is that no one is sure who is
going to administer it.
"Assuming the Athletic Department is (going to
administer it) and that we are putting in public
money because the Athletic Department says it
cannot afford to operate it," he said, "then we need
to begin contact to examine their records. It is the
right of the taxpayer if he is going to subsidize it."
Marvel said the subcommittee of Clark and Sen.
Harold Simpson will meet with Athletic Department,
UNL and NU officials for suggestions on
administration of the field house and how more
money can be brought in to help finance its
operation.
'Real problem'
Simpson said he would be looking for "what the
real problem is in the supposed lack of money which
the Athletic Department claims."
An Athletic Department financial projection
shows a possible loss of $8 1 ,000 in all sports during
the year in which first operational costs of the field
house will come. This figure does not include the
expense of operating the field house.
"The legislature has never looked into athletic
funds," Simpson said. "We feel this might be the time
we should. I have some idea of what will happen:
we'll look at the figures, at all the freebies, the whole
picture, Then we'll make recommendations first to
the Appropriations Committee and then to the entire
Legislature."
Simpson said the study will happen "rather
quickly," possibly before the appropriation comes up
for vote on the floor of the Legislature.
Public knowledge
Athletic Director - Bob Devaney said all the
department's fiscal records are public knowledge and
the look into them is "not anything that will bother
us."
However, he said, he does not understand why the
Legislature is questioning the use of money for
athletes when it never has questioned the use of
money for such areas as science or law.
"We're not a different part of the unviersity," he
said.
While Marvel opposed the appropriation for the
field house, he said, he objects even more to the SUN
funding.
"If we begin to use tax money to subsidize that
project in which we had no input in the first place,"
he said, "we begin to water down the effect of the
tax dollar."
Takes money away
SUN takes money away from UNL, the University
of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), the University of
Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), state colleges and
community colleges, he said.
Marvel said he thought these two bills were
reconsidered because of additional public demand
and because of contacts by "interested people, both
paid and unpaid," with the senators.
"All I know is 1 was opposed to them at the start
and I am still opposed," he said.
Simpson said the field house issue was brought up
for reconsideration because many senators "got a lot
of flack" concerning how the field house would be
maintained.
Both Marvel and Sen. Shirley Marsh said they
expect the bills to meet some opposition when the
Legislature takes action on them.
Marsh said this opposition must be assumed
because Tuesday Sen. Frank Lewis mentioned on the
Legislative floor that the Appropriations Committee
had changed its mind. The way he said it was
"discouraging," said Marsh, who favors both bills.
. .
Plant science building study funded
U.S. Attorney General Edward
Levi
Attorney
General
to speak
The new East Campus NU
Law College Building will be
dedicated - Thursday. The
ceremony will begin at 4 p.m.
in the lecture hall oi' the new
building.
U.S. Attorney General
Edward Levi will receive an
honorary Juris Doctor degree
and later will speak at the Law
College-Law Day banquet.
The banquet is co-sponsored
by the College of Law and the
Lincoln Bar Association.
Levi is the former president
of the University of Chicago
and former dean of the
University of Chicago law
school. He was a member of
the White House Central Group
on Domestic Affairs and the
White House Task Force on
Education.
After the afternoon
ceremonies, law students will
conduct tours through the new
$3.2 million building.
By Ron Wylie
University systems
personnel will prepare planning
and use studies for two new
NU projects in an
Appropriations Committee
decision which may set a
precedent in future funding.
Unicameral budget
committee members allocated
$40,000 for planning costs of a
plant sicnece building and
$10,000 for a use-study on a
proposed mid-city education
center in Omaha. But in each
case, the committee voted to.
direct the NU Systems Office
to prepare studies.
Committee Chairman
Richard Marvel of Hastings said
he thought the systems office
could provide a more impartial
analysis of needs and
expenditures than the unit
involved-such as UNO.
In debate over the UNO
Education Center, Omaha
Senators John Savage and
Glenn Goodrich said the state
needed to clarify its position
regarding the mid-Omaha
project.
Commitment asked
Currently, plans for the
center call for a $10 million
project, with a private Omaha
donor providing $2.5 million,
the Omaha business
community adding $2.5
million, and the state
contributing the other $5
million.
Omaha businessmen and the
anonymous donor want some
type of commitment, Savage
said, adding "I hate to see us
lose $5 million that has been
pledged."
Goodrich asked for the
$10,000 use-study grant to
determine if "Omaha is really
going to use this building."
If the use-study shows a
need for the center, Goodrich
said, UNO can present plans
next year for some type of
bond financing of the project.
The study appropriation
passed the committee by a 7-2
vote, but Lincoln Sen. Shirley
Marsh reminded Goodrich that
funding the planning study was
not a commitment to go ahead
with the project.
Hospital purchased
Appropriations - Committee
members also passed a quarter
million dollar authorization for
the University of Nebraska
Medical Center to purcahse
Omaha's Good Shepherd
hospital facilities. The funding
amendment, sponsored by
Omaha Sen. Savage, also
appropriated another $700,000
from next year's state general
funds to make the balance of
the purchase.
Savage said the medical
center addition was
"absolutely necessary for the
development of the medical
school."
He told committee members
the university had already used
the facility for over a year.
"People who own this
property and are selling it to
us, have been waiting two years
to get their money," Savage
contended, "The Legislature
voted , 42-2 to accept the
acquisition; they must believe
in it."
Savage said if the state
didn't take the property now,
"Clarkson Hospital can and
will sell it to someone else."
Ambulatorium
The Savage amendment
specified that the purchase was
'-,
to be completed within the
next year.
Earlier in the week, the
committee granted $2.5
million in state funds, to be
matched by $5 million in
federal funds, for a Med Center
ambulatorium. The facility will
serve as an out-patient teaching
and care center.
In its last day of budget
hearings, the committee failed
to fund a $290,000 addition to
the university's Life Science
Bldg. The motion to fund the
addition, sponsored by Sen.
Marsh "to make it complete,"
lost 4-2, with three
abstentions.
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Hastings Sen. Richard Marvel, Appropriaiions Committee Chairman
