Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Wright State University will sell its downtown building known as the Kettering Center for $1 million.
The building is located at 140 E. Monument Ave. The university’s board of trustees voted to approve the sale along with the sale of another property at 3171 Research Park Boulevard for $1.3 million.
The vote on the sales was not on the board’s agenda and a spokesman said the university will not provide resolutions the board voted on until after the meeting.
Wright State is dealing with a budget crisis after trustees cut more than $30 million from the school’s budget in June 2017. Those cuts ended up not being enough though as the university reduced spending by $53 million by the end of fiscal year 2018 which ended on June 30.
Trustees approved a FY 2019 budget this June that projected a $10-million decline in revenue.
INITIAL REPORT
Members of Wright State University’s faculty union are planning to protest at a board of trustees meeting this morning.
Wright State’s board of trustees is scheduled to meet at 8:30 a.m. on the first floor of the building at 2455 Presidential Drive.
The Wright State chapter of the American Association of University Professors is calling on its members to protest at the meeting. A Facebook event listed 39 people as planning to attend the protest and another 44 as interested, as of Thursday night.
The WSU administration and faculty union have been locked in a sometimes-tense contract negotiation for more than a year. Contract talks initially stalled when former Wright State president David Hopkins resigned in March 2017.
The administration has since offered the union a three-year contract with no raises and reduced health benefits, said Martin Kich, president of the Wright State chapter of the Association of American University Professors.
A final fact-finder’s report on negotiations is due out Oct. 29 and the faculty union has threatened to strike if a deal is not reached.
This morning’s meeting comes just days after Wright State announced it would avoid state fiscal watch, though an official announcement from the state won’t come until the spring of 2019.
