The Viable College and the Sisyphean Nightmare
This letter from College President Devine to Chancellor Hall states “the plan to charge depreciation to each campus is, for the College, the crushing blow. It renders the challenge of building a healthy and viable College a Sisyphean nightmare.” This plan would come into full force with University CFO Watts’ Drain The Pipes order.
Depreciation_22Feb1999.pdf [35.73KB],
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Excerpts
By adding a $1.3 million depreciation expense at the College, we will (a) completely demoralize a staff and faculty that has worked very hard to put the College in the black, to build a foundation for capital fundraising, and to strengthen all aspects of our operation without significant increases in the resource base, (b) make it virtually impossible to approach foundations — who always look at the accrual line as a sign of fiscal health, © make it extremely difficult to undertake the sort of major fundraising that is essential to the College’s survival (it’s not easy to convince donors who suspect that they are funding a chronic deficit), (d) make it impossible to secure real leadership for the College, and (e) confirm absolutely what the AIF folks have been saying for the past five years. Further, it seems odd (as it will to University critics) that the depreciation is shifted to the College, while the assets (the College’s endowment and the buildings) are not similarly shifted to our balance sheet.