Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1918 [PAGE 104]

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100

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[September 21,

tary of the Board of Trustees to vouchers on the State Auditor and warrants on the University Treasurer, for vouchers approved as above. The Comptroller shall be authorized to sign the name of the President, or of the Secretary, of the Board of Trustees to vouchers on the State Auditor, or warrants on the University Treasurer, in case of emergency; provided, that under no circumstances shall the Comptroller sign the names of both the President and Secretary to the same warrant or voucher.

This recommendation was adopted unanimously.

FINANCIAL NEEDS OF T H E UNIVERSITY

(4) A discussion of the requests for appropriations which should be made of the next Legislature. The President urged very strongly that the income from the mill tax is not at all adequate to provide for the increasing demands on the University for equipment, salaries of staff, and other operating expenses, and at the same time to carry out a reasonable building program. We should have at least a million dollars a year for building purposes for a decade to come. The Board of Trustees should ask the Legislature for additional funds, in the shape of either 1. An extra, appropriation of three-quarters of a million dollars a year for the acquisition of sites and the erection and equipment of buildings; or 2. An addition of one-third of a mill tax for the period of ten years for the same purpose; or 3. Authority to borrow money as rapidly as it is needed for the purpose of carrying out the building program. If the request should be made for three-quarters of a million dollars a year to be defrayed from the general funds of the state, it might be asked for in a lump sum, or an effort might be made to provide for specific portions of a reasonable building project. This general building project covering a decade should include at least two million dollars for an Agricultural plant; two million dollars for an Engineering plant; two million dollars for a Medical plant; one million dollars for a section of a Library building; one million dollars for a section for a Museum building; five hundred thousand dollars for an Administration building. one million dollars for a boys' gymnasium and auxiliaries five hundred thousand dollars for a girls' gymnasium and auxiliaries The other necessary buildings, such as the addition to the Natural History building, the addition to the Commerce building, the addition to Lincoln Hall, and the various additions to the present Engineering buildings, and the completion of the Armory, might be taken care of out of the mill tax, though if the attendance at the University should continue to increase in anything like the ratio at which it has been increasing during the last few years, every dollar of the mill tax will be needed in the ordinary operation of the institution, and. these items would have to be provided" for out of other funds.