Thursday, March 6, 1980
7
University Daily Kansan
Stouffer Place rent up despite 'in the black' budget
By TOM TEDESCHI
Staff Reporter
Inflation and rising maintenance costs are making Stouffer Place rents rise, according to KU housing officials.
But some residents of the 200-unit complex say they can't see much of either -inflation or maintenance -around the University housing complex.
At a meeting with Stouffer residents last week, J. Wilson, director of housing, said the 9.5 percent increase was designed in the hope that money lost on last year's 5 percent jump
If you look at Slufter renters for the last 15 years, you will see that they have risen by 75 percent, while the Consumer Price Index rose by 250 percent," he said.
But according to Alen Hebert, chairman of the Stouffer Neighborhood Association's board, it is important that we, as heavily weighted by food and petroleum products, all of which Stouffer residents pay for.
Maintenance also is a poor excuse, according to residents, because they simply are not getting the amounts of services they pay for.
At the same meeting, one Stouffer resident complained of a leak in her roof that had been "temporarily" fixed time and time again, with negligible results.
WATER LEAKED from her bedroom and bathroom ceilings when a little moisture built up, she said.
"What is meant by temporary repairs? You've been making temporary repairs for the last two years! I have black mold on the ceiling. How do you call the building inspector," she said.
According to Dean Milny, the housing physical plant supervisor, the leak was in a difficult place to reach—because of a foam ceiling. He recalled during the last "temporary" repair
Wilson said when warmer weather came, they could be more "reckless" in learing out the portions of the ceiling needed to get to the leak.
Another recurring Stouffer Place problem
concerns snow removal. According to Tim Sterling, a spokesman for SNA, after a recent snowfall Stouffer residents were encouraged by the maintenance department to clear their own walks with shovels that been provided by the housing department.
ANOTHER STOUFFER SNOW removal gripe is that the apartments are relegated to last place in the housing department's priorities for parking lots clearance.
"We have no priority schedule." Wilson said. "If we have a heavy snow accident, we'll go ball tosses and eight ball. It is hard to establish priorities because snow comes in different directions and blows in different ways. We have a dust on hills, but simply for safety and convenience."
A major problem in clearing Stouffer lots was that with heavy equipment there was the danger of blocking in residents' cars with plowed snow, he said.
Residents in Stouffer buildings 1, 2, and 3 have also complained that they are paying charges for full-size refrigerators even though they do not have them.
Thirty-seven of the 300 Stouffer apartments have small refrigerators. When the apartments were remodeled a number of years ago, the new larger units that had been installed served in time, so the old ones were kept. Wilson said there were no plans to replace them.
Yet another Stoffler complaint is that they have inadequate sidewalk and outdoor spaces. Most of the storefronts have surfaced so frequently in Stoffler Park every year—that they are almost quiet.
SA CHAARMAN Kent Frohlis said that the U.S. Stouffer Place had been sketched out years ago, but that year after year the University used the excuse of not having enough money to build it.
Dissatisfied with the rent increase, Sterling started his own investigation six months ago, and in January the SNA formed Hebert's committee for the same purpose.
But according to Sterling and Hebert, recent investigations into Souffler finances have revealed that year after year their investments were in the black, in effect, making money.
Sterling and Hebert said they found that eight quantities of money left over after all operations had been completed were being carried over each year, in both the Stoffler Place and in the Chestnut Street.
ACCORDING TO KU financial records, the whole KU housing system in 1977 showed an unmancumbered cash balance—access more than $1.7 million. This is more than 20 percent of the total operating expenditures and including maintenance and improvement costs.
In 1978 this dropped to a little more than $740,000 and last year dwindled to a little
For the same period, the records show,
The Soulfer balance went from about $3,000 to more than $5,000, then down to
about $46,000—a net drop of 16 percent.
What is most important for what is known as Soulfer III, the last five buildings to be built in Soulfer Place.
more than $300,000—a net drop of $1.4
million, or 83 percent.
Sterling last week asked Wilson for the cash balances for Stouffer I and II, the 20 other Stouffer buildings, which were buried in a housing subtotal.
Wilson refused, on the grounds that it would take too much time. He told Sterling to get a letter from David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs, and Lora Grunz, director of the student assistance division at the university formation. After obtaining legal counsel.
Sterling balked, on grounds that the records were public information and the letter would set a bad precedent.
THE RECORDS, which presumably are in the University computer, have not yet been released, to either Sterling or the SNA.
Hebert, Sterling and one Stouffer students complained that a disproportionate share of the burden in pushing the year-end cash balances back up to their former
Stouffer residents were subsidizing the students living in the residence halls, which were losing much more money to inflation than they were, they said.
In addition to the $36,000 in rent increases that will flow into Stouffer accounts next year, and the fact that the apartments after year after age “in the black,” the
K-State married housing cheaper
By TOM TEDESCHI Staff Reporter
Soon after the Board of Regents approved a monthly rent increase for Stouffer Place from $105 to $115 last January, Regents chairman Jordan Haines said, "I persevered in the world where a person could live and rent a single bedroom for $115 a month."
But 70 miles down Interstate 70 in Manhattan, furnished one-bedroom apartments were going for $100 a month. Next year they are scheduled to go up to $102 a month or a percent increase, compared with the Shafer Place increase of 9.5 percent.
MARRIED STUDENTS in k-State's Jardine Terrace pay $8 less per month for one-bedroom furnished apartments, who mirror-image mirrors of those in Stouffer Place.
difference between them seems to be in what the rent covers.
Not only do Jardine residents pay less for their apartments, but all utilities except electricity are included in the monthly rent.
Also, about one-third of the Jardine apartments are offered unfurnished at lower prices, something the Stouffer's management association has sought without success.
The similarities between Stoufier Place and Jardine Terrace are striking. The only
Although a Jardine Terrace one-bedroom furnished apartment costs less than a comparable unit at KU, a two-bedroom unit at St. Charles costs more a month than a comparable Stoffler unit.
IN DESIGN and the two apartment complexes are almost identical. Built from the same floor plans at about the same time—the late 1950s and early 1960s—the main difference is that each Jardine building is like two Stoffer-type buildings in an configuration. A Jardine building consists of many apartments as one in Stoffer Place.
but the K-State system and Jardine
travel to New York. The university un-
numbered cash balances a money jet
over each year after all operating expendi-
ture and fund transfers, that the KU
pay for, are paid in installments.
Jardine Terrence is somewhat larger than the 4,300. The whole K-1SHA housing system is of comparable size to the one at KU. There are about 4,300 spaces at KSUA and about 5,100 spaces at KTSA.
According to recent K-Sate financial reports, many components of that system lose money. This does not happen at KU. Each year the K-Sate system shows a decrease in the charged cash balance, as does KU. KU's budget, however, is considerably larger.
In 178 and 179, the KU system showed unencumbered balances of $41,603 and $34,477. The K-State balances for the same years were $10,299 and $108,563.
University seems to be making money on the interest accruing in the Stouffer sinking funds and repair-replacement reserves, Sterling said.
He said the money in these funds—more than $150,000 in each—was generating 10 percent interest v<sup>b</sup>. the interest due on the loans was $150,000. Wilson also refused to release these records.
"If that's true, or closely true, why are we continually increasing our rents with so much money available?" he asked.
WILSON SAID any extra money in these williams are not stipulated in the bill agreements, which prohibit this money from being used for operating costs or for fuel.
"It is not intended in any way that goes into operating funds," he said. "We are just redeeming our interest costs. It behooves us to go right along the way we're providing for opportunity and our responsibility, as quickly as we can . . . to invest that money."
ACCORDING TO Randy Tongier, director of state agency audits, which checks KU bonds, Mr. Tongier said the bond accounts of the types being used for Stouffler Place is virtually locked up "until we get a report from the district," he said, it would be to the University to use the money in whatever way it chooses, unless the bank approves.
The bonds taken out on Stouffer Place are due to mature in a five-year period from 1966 to 2001.
As for the large unencumbered cash balances, Tonger said, here also there was nothing prohibiting the University from setting them as it chose. There is legislation that prohibits deficit spending called the Basel law, but there are no specifies set down as to how much "in the black" an institution was allowed to operate.
"It is a function of receipts, rate of occupancy, revenues and expenditures as well as the size of the system," he said. "It is important that it be made by the individual universities."
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