Trustees Approve Action Items at Nov. 17 Meeting
November 27, 2017
University of Northern Colorado Board of Trustees met on Friday, Nov. 17, and approved a change to the employee optional retirement plan, a plan to address upcoming controlled-maintenance projects and a room naming in honor of late faculty member Bob Heiny.
- The amendment to the optional retirement plan goes into effect Jan. 1 and will provide the option for ORP-enrolled employees 65 and older to choose to receive in-service distributions from their plan. Written requests must specify the desired amount from the plan to withdraw in the form of a lump-sum payment or transferred into an eligible retirement plan.
- The controlled-maintenance projects were approved under terms of Colorado Senate Bill 17-267, which allows existing facilities to be used as collateral to speed up completion of high-priority projects. The board approved the collateralization of the Jackson Soccer Team Building to complete the following projects totaling $2.1 million: Gunter Hall fire sprinklers, phase II work and tunnel abatement; and replacement of the air-handling unit for Butler-Hancock pool.
- The room naming to the Bob Heiny Student-Athlete Academic Success Center recognizes a $185,000 gift by honorary alumnus Bob Phelps, and his request to add Heiny's name to the updated center. Heiny, a math professor who passed away last year, served at UNC for 48 years. He was UNC's Faculty Athletics Representative to the NCAA for 28 years and was inducted into UNC's Athletics Hall of Fame in 2009.
In other news:
- Alberto Pimentel with Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates, the firm assisting UNC with the presidential search, met with the Presidential Search Committee to discuss the search process and his role in facilitating it. Learn more about the search.
- VP of External and University Relations Dan Weaver updated the board on fall enrollment numbers from the census.
- At their work session Thursday, trustees reviewed the updated fiscal sustainability plan. Drafted in 2014, the five-year "roadmap" toward fiscal sustainability calls for growing enrollment revenue and identifying sustainable cost savings while strategically investing in university priorities. Enrollment reached the highest level in a decade this fall but growth has been slower than anticipated in the original plan. FY 2018-19 is the final year of the fiscal sustainability plan, and as President Kay Norton mentioned in her campus memo Nov. 9, the university is taking additional steps to be cash-flow positive by then.
The board's next scheduled meeting is Jan. 19.
