Save Tulane Engineering

[wwalkeri]

Ive seen 350 million, 300 million, 250 million, 200 million, and 150 million claimed as damages to Tulane's campus by various administrative officials. Which one is it? How can any of them be trusted when they can't even provide clear numbers to the Public? Is there anyway we could force an official audit? This is ridiculous and getting out of hand. They are feeding the AAUP and Tulane students a huge load of B.S.

[perturbed1]

Actually it appears Scott just keeps jacking the number up as long as the criticism grows. He has now gotten pretty close to the total value of the land and physical plant of the university.

[gwlaw88]

Has anyone seen any info [hard facts] provided by the school as to what the insurance payout is? or what was requested from the insurers? What has actually been denied, if anything? Has Cowan claimed the school had no flood insurance? I have not really seen any pictures of the school in a flooded state so I am not sure the extent of the damage caused by flood v. wind but even if that is an issue with the insurance coverage - if the school was on the ball, it would have both a flood policy and an excess flood policy therefore most of the damages should be covered by insurance except for the deductible. Additionally, in a lot of large commercial policies, flood coverage is provided without the need for a seperate flood policy. Finally, had anyone at the school mentioned if Tulane had a business interruption policy? Also, in regard to the dryout and repairs, it is generally the case that vendor bills are not paid until the insurance money is paid. I doubt that Cowan coughed up all the money to pay Belfor, etc., up front as it seems I saw mentioned by him somewhere. In any direct inquires to the school officials regarding hurricane losses, these figures should be provided. Nevertheless, is seems that the bulk of the repairs are either completed at this point, or the scope and cost is certainly known, so the everchanging damage and loss figure is a mystery.

Has anyone heard if Tulane has filed any lawsuits against its insurance carriers?

Also, again, I can't imagine that completely revamping the administrative infrastructure of the school is not quite costly- where are the figures on how much the CHANGES are costing. Did Cowan have to pay those "consultants" he relied on?

Finally, did he factor in the loss of alumni contributions and/or the loss of potential new students - honestly if I got a brochure describing the "new" Tulane, I would not even apply to the school. Do the engineering students know what will be lost in grant money or potential grant money? Seems to me that there would be alot of grant money out there post-Katrina for funding hurricane, etc related projects.

[Dr. H.]

[wckirby]

http://www2.tulane.edu/pdf/financialstatement2004.pdf

This is a very bare-bones assesment done by an auditor for the bondholders of the university.

Total property, physical plant, etc. amount to about $420 million (FY2004). $300 million in damages is a bold-faced lie. I can't wait for the media to call them on it.
_________________
Clay Kirby
11th generation New Orleanian
4th generation Tulanian
Mechanical Engineering Class of '06

[Lee Hoffman]

Clay,

Call John Pope at the Times-Pic and give him these figures. He's the guy who wrote the article on the open forum on campus and also the piece on the med center reopening. His email address, if not his phone number, should be on his byline on the articles he's written at NOLA.com.

[perturbed1]

The administration has stated that they did have business interruption insurance. It is also known that they took out a large loan $100-150 million after Katrina. It has also be stated repeatedly that insurance is not covering the costs and that there is some dispute with the insurance companies over the source of the water, ground water or sky water I would guess. That is usually the argument.

I would also conjecture that the insurance companies probably do not consider the 24/7 work schedule Scott put Belfor on to be entirely reimbursable. Further i conjecture that BuRP is more about the administration converting restricted endowment to unrestricted endowment than anything else. All the endowments of the school of engineering including the endowed chairs are freed once the school is restructured out of existence. Same for Tulane College and Newcomb.

Anyway short-term restructuring costs almost certainly will negate any savings. Heck the printing costs alone of tossing all your forms, handouts, business cards, etc plus the WEB pages. Not tomention separation costs, new hires, revamped advising staffs. Of course all that pales when put next to the hit Tulane is going to take in alumni giving. I've said it before and I will say it again. Scott is a much bigger disaster for the university than Katrina.

[wwalkeri]

Also, consider the fact that alot of the engineering board wants to take their endowments out of Tulane. Imagine if Tulane endowments were removed and invested in schools like UNO.

[cenla alum]

1) I wouldn't think Tulane would not have flood insurance based on the previous flood history - this is NOT the first time the campus has flooded - yes, I have seen numerous pics from the 70s and prios where canoes we used to go down McAlister and any TUL alum can tell you of the amount of vinyl and equip that has been lost in the former UC basement.

If they didn't have flood insurance that in one leg to stand on for lawsuit - they are required by the Act to maintain proper insurance.

2) Don't bank on the endowments reverting to the board. If specific language is not in the bequest, then its use ceases. For instance if I gave money to Newcomb and did not include the phrase should Newcomb cease to exist, the Adminstrators of TEF could make use of the funds as they see best fitting the original bequest, then the funds revert to my heirs and the university no longer has use of my estate.

3) JL Newcomb left her estate in the trust of her attorney and then President of Newcomb Dixon - this included all property of Newcomb and her funds and bonds at the time of her death. She did not leave them to the Administrators of TEF. Therein lies the problem with Newcomb. Her gift was specific in its intent.

[Dr. Ash]

If the University was not fully and completely insured, the onus falls on Cowan alone. This was his oversight, and is grounds for dismissal.

[perturbed1]

Yeah cenla but possession is nine tenths of the law and who is their to speak for the heirs. The trustees of the Newcomb endowment are essentially all Tulane appointees. If the Dean of Newcomb won't fight for her school who will?

The Robertson heirs cannot get Princeton to spend that endowment properly and for the purposes intended or a court to back them up, and they are living breathing sons and daughters.

[wckirby]

Here's some more financial data that might help out:

http://www.tulane.edu/~usenate/Reports/CommRprts04-05/BudRev_May05.html

Last pre-K budget review.
_________________
Clay Kirby
11th generation New Orleanian
4th generation Tulanian
Mechanical Engineering Class of '06

[perturbed1]

"At the same meeting at which the SCBR reviewed second quarter results, it received a report on the Eminent Scholarship Chairs and Professorships. Eminent Scholars, a program of the Louisiana Board of Regents, provides matching funds for chairs and professorships. For the coming fiscal year, expenditures for approximately five chairs and 38 professorships across campus will be limited, due to Board of Regents requirements which set a baseline for the corpus of each chair and professorship. The overall financial result of these limits will be negligible for the university as a whole, but not necessarily for those academic units most affected (Business, Medicine and Law). "

This is interesting. I was aware of the matching funds from the legislature for endowed chairs but forgot that by by dropping departments and the school of engineering to get rid of tenured faculty (and in the process reverting the endowments to unrestricted status) there might be revenue consequences from the legislature. I guess Scott wants to refurbish Fortier pretty badly and become the saviour of NOLA public education. Couple this with our new COO and you have to wonder what Scott's plans are for the next year. It is clear his ambitions are as large grand as his chins. But what exactly are those ambitions?