Good old boys at play

3/24/2010: I’ve always thought Frohnmayer’s golden parachute gig was pretty corrupt. OUS Chancellor Pernsteiner and his lawyer Ryan Hagemann kept the negotiations secret, and when they finally released the contract showing that UO would pay Frohnmayer $245,700 for 35 hours of teaching – per year – it left out many of the other perks he would get, like another $186,000 for “expenses”. More info is here.

But it turns out Frohnmayer and Pernsteiner are amateurs. Greg Bolt of the RG has an amazing story about Bellotti’s $2.3 million parachute:

The UO had no signed agreement with Bellotti on the terms of his employment or departure when he took over the job of athletic director last summer, yet the UO says it will pay the former football coach $2.3 million to fulfill unspecified “commitments” that were never put on paper.

Bellotti negotiated the terms of his employment orally with UO President Richard Lariviere last July, when both of them were beginning their new jobs, a UO spokeswoman said. Those terms are not being made public. Less than nine months later, the two settled on the details of a deal allowing Bellotti to leave for a television job with the multi-million-dollar payout.

Only the resignation agreement was committed to paper. That document states that the UO will pay Bellotti $2.3 million “to fulfill commitments made to Bellotti at the time of his employment as intercollegiate Athletics Director,” but it does not say what those commitments were.

Lariviere was preparing for a trip to Asia and was not available for comment this week. Reached by phone Friday, Bellotti referred questions about the financial terms of his employment agreement back to the university administration.

There are many more strange details in Bolt’s story. And thanks for posting the contract Greg!

You guarantee him 7%? The money will apparently come from Knight’s $100 million donation pledge. When he was selling the legislature on the $200 million arena bond package, Frohnmayer said this money would be used to guarantee the $18 million annual bond repayments that start next year.  Lariviere has some explaining to do. Avoiding Bolt’s questions is pretty chickenshit.

Why doesn’t Knight simply give Bellotti the $2.3 million himself? Taxes. By going through the UO Foundation, the donations are tax deductible to Knight, saving him 35% on Federal and 12% on Oregon taxes. Bellotti will have to pay, but he avoids the 10% federal gift tax. Nice scam.