Wolf reps ask PSU trustees to delay building projects

The Penn State trustees thought about kicking a decision to the January meeting.

But there won’t be a January meeting. At least, not a public one.

The governance and long-range planning committee voted Thursday to recommend a switch to the schedule, turning the January meeting into a closed-door retreat as trustees undergo their first board reassessment in years.

The next meeting should then be March in Hershey, but with that seeming too far down the road, the committee opted to mix that one up, too, going with a February meeting.

Trustees said they considered changing that to a University Park meeting, but with deposits and reservations already in place for the annual Hershey road trip, it made more sense to just change the date and not the location.

President Eric Barron said that the move was not made with the idea of saving money, but that was a legitimate concern, calling the trustees’ budget the “fastest growing” managed by Old Main. The July trustees gathering at Penn State Beaver in Monaca, for example, had a total price tag of $86,266.

And all of that might have been no problem at all, but then Gov. Tom Wolf came into play.

The governor’s secretaries on the board made a request when it came to voting on a plan to build a residence hall at Penn State Brandywine for $31.5 million, a dining hall and student union at the same campus for $19.6 million and a student apartment building at Penn State Abington for $50.6 million.

John Hanger, secretary of planning and policy and Wolf’s nonvoting representative to the board, asked the trustees to postpone any vote on the topic. He referenced the governor’s continuing budget battle in Harrisburg, one of the sticking points of which is education funding, including Penn State’s appropriation.

The request sparked heated debate between trustees.

“We now have in place someone who is a friend of public education. We want that partner to be receptive,” trustee Anthony Lubrano said, supporting Wolf’s request.

Trustee Mark Dambly, however, brought the issue to the floor to vote for the project rather than delaying it. He later rescinded his motion.

Vice Chairman Ira Lubert said that he fully intended to vote for the project, which was six years in the planning, but that he had no problem with waiting.

But Vice President for Finance and Business David Gray said that a delay of even weeks could mean losing a year in marketing the rooms.

So instead of waiting until February, Chairman Keith Masser said that he intends to call a December phone meeting to vote on the project, still giving a pause for the governor’s request.

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 7:52 PM with the headline "Wolf reps ask PSU trustees to delay building projects."