Last week, Ohio University announced that it’s forking over $250,000 during the next five years to aid in the payment of a $1.1 million, custom-made fire truck for the city of Athens.
Although that might seem like a cordial gesture, OU officials have said for months that they shouldn’t be on the hook for the fire truck. So how, all of a sudden, can OU afford the cost?
With much of its budget caught in a state of perpetual cutbacks, OU doesn’t have $250,000 lying around. A partial hiring freeze is in place, tuition and room rates have risen each of the past few years, and employees were encouraged to take buyouts last year to avoid potentially getting pink slips. Despite all of this, the powers that be believe there’s enough wiggle room in the university’s budget to partially finance a new ladder truck for the city.
But when did it become the university’s job to maintain the Athens Fire Department’s fleet? The city hasn’t encountered any more financial hardship than the university, so should the responsibility of solving the city’s fiscal shortfall rest on OU’s shoulders?
The primary rationale in requesting student dollars for the new ladder truck is that one third of all calls requiring such a truck come from university buildings.
Is it not the city’s duty to provide basic services to all of its residents (including those who happen to live in dorms)? Furthermore, the current ladder truck is more than 20 years old — meaning city leaders have had two full decades to budget for the cost of replacing it.
In an equally irresponsible decision, OU has committed $50,000 for each of the next five years to the truck, seemingly with no idea where that money is coming from. OU officials have said the financing of the truck will be decided on a yearly basis, and city officials think it’s no big deal to heap the cost onto the backs of students already up to their necks in fees. Don’t OU’s tuition- and tax-paying stakeholders deserve to know up front how OU plans to foot this bill?
The $250,000 pledge comes as part of an agreement with the city to work collaboratively with OU in the future. But according to a presentation given to Student Senate last year, Athens officials hadn’t even discussed the fire-truck purchase with top OU administrators before passing a resolution formally asking the university for the money.
If the city is willing, more or less, to demand $250,000 from OU before speaking to university leaders, it’s hard to have faith in its ability to participate cordially in future “collaborations.”
A little more than a year and a half ago, OU said there wasn’t money in the bank for a new ladder truck. If state education funding remains unpredictable at best, deferred maintenance levels continue to rise, and the university budget remains in state of cutback, then why the sudden change of heart?
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
