• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Education / U-I president lays out billion-dollar plan for public-private utility ownership

U-I president lays out billion-dollar plan for public-private utility ownership

December 4, 2019 By Dar Danielson

U-I President Bruce Harreld.

University of Iowa president Bruce Harreld laid out a few more details Tuesday on the proposal to create a public-private partnership to run the school’s utility system.

Harreld says the private company would give the U-I a one-time payment that would be put into an endowment and a new nonprofit organization would then manage the funds. He says they would hire an investment firm and invest the net proceeds and determine the annual allocation to the university. He says those funds would be used to carry out the school’s strategic plan and also provide a subsidy to keep the campus utility costs within historical trends.

Harreld told the Board of Regents the university would take $153 million to pay off the bonds on the utility plant and $13 million  for consulting fees on the plan. He says the remaining invested funds are expected to give a generous return. “It’s a three billion-dollar number. This is how much the endowment must distribute over 50 years in order to cover the cost the strategic plan payments to the U-I, as well as the utility subsidy,” Harreld says.

Harreld says it is believe the endowment should be able to create this return. “In the context of 50 years — our modeling projects we would need a roughly four percent return on the endowment,” according to Harreld. “To put that in context, the university has average around eight percent per year over the past decade.”

The board that oversees the endowment would include a regent, a member of the U-I faculty and the U-I senior vice president for finance. The university is not revealing the names of the companies that might be the partners in the project. Harreld says they will not be selling the utilities and the employees of the utility system will not lose their jobs.

The Board of Regents will have to give approval to the plan.

(Photos from the Board of Regents)

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Education, News Tagged With: University of Iowa, Utilities

Featured Stories

Final employee who was there at the launch of the Iowa Lottery to retire

No more USPS mail in Iowa prisons; inmates to get copies of mail

State officials warn of influx of fake prescription drugs laced with fentanyl

‘Brain-eating amoeba’ discovered in Taylor County lake

Cedar Rapids therapist’s relationship with student leads to years in prison

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Knee injury sidelines Iowa’s Feuerbach

Iowa State’s McDonald has unfinished business

Hawkeyes open fall camp

Northern Iowa picked to finish fifth in MVFC race

Hunter Dekkers takes over at Iowa State

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2022 · Learfield News & Ag, LLC