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ODE on Bend and Moseley

7/28/2010: Ryan Buckley had a story on the end of Bend a few days back, that I missed. He managed to get both current Provost Jim Bean and former Provost John Moseley to speak on the record:

“The statements that some faculty have made that the program was ‘costing UO $1 million a year’ are nonsense,” Moseley said, “The total cost of UO’s program has been approximately $1 million a year for the past few years (and was even less in previous years), with these costs covered by revenue from the program.”

In the summer of 2009, Moseley’s contract with the University was the subject of a review by the state’s Internal Audit Division (IAD) following a complaint to the Oregon University System’s hotline.

According to a June 31, 2009, memorandum sent to University President Richard Lariviere from IAD Executive Director Patricia Snopkowski, the investigation concluded Bean had failed to update the responsibilities outlined in Moseley’s original contract to reflect a reduction in workload enacted in July 2008. Moseley’s original post-retirement contract from June 2006 had included work with the Oregon Bach Festival and the University’s Portland campus.

However, at the time of the audit, the agreement continued to state Moseley was being paid for these duties he had been relieved of almost a year earlier, and the IAD instructed the University to amend the contract to more accurately reflect Moseley’s performance.

I haven’t seen any documents supporting Moseley’s claim that Bend broke even. Provost Bean will only release them in exchange for a cash payment, and I haven’t sold enough mugs yet. The people I know who have seen them say they do not include all the relevant costs – most hilariously, Moseley’s own salary, OPE, and travel expenses, or about $200,000 per year.

Regardless, this story is finally over – except for 2 more years of payments to Moseley, and a bit more erosion in what little trust there is between the administration and the faculty. Here’s a simple proposal that might help us move forward with the trust issues: If a UO administrator publicly asserts that something is true, they should be willing to provide the public records that address their claim.

And they shouldn’t charge the faculty to see those documents!

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