THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Vol.87,No.110
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Founder leaving jewelry department
Wednesday, March 23, 1977
See story page seven
Student Senate expected to favor student fee raise
By MARSHA WOOLERY
Staff Reporter
The Student Senate will vote whether to tentatively favor a $1 a student increase in Kansas Union fees at the Senate meeting at night in the Big Eight Room of the Union.
The Student Services Committee recommended last night that the Senate accept a resolution favoring the increase. The committee's recommendation came from members grilled Union administration an hour on a axepage report giving background on increased Union operational costs, which are expected to cost $98,540 next year.
PASSAGE OF the resolution tonight will give Union officials an indication of whether the delegate will support the increase and reduction in energy at its budget meeting April 12 and 13.
Steve Leben, student body president, said it was important for the State to consider expanding the curriculum.
Elections cost almost $4,000
About $4,000 was spent by presidential, vice president, and Student Senate candidates in the cab. 16 and 17 election, for the FBI's Committee chairman, said last night.
According to expense reports filed by the presidential candidates of the three coalitions running in the election, the Reflection coalition spent $1,184.09; the Spectrum coalition, $1,332.94; and the Avanti coalition, $1,238.85.
Presidential and vice presidential candidates for Reflection, Steve Leben and Ken Burns, represented by campaign; Spectrum candidates, Sherrie Grey and Don Green, spent $700 in their campaign; and Randy McKernan and Katie McKernan for the Avant coalition, spent $944.
Senate election rules require that presidential candidates submit an expense report for their coalition a week after the election. The reports were made public after they were presented to the Elections Committee last night.
Senate rules limit spending for presidential and vice presidential races to seven cents for each full-time student at KU, or about $1,400 a presidential team. Spending for Senate races was limited to one cent per constituent. The number of constituents varies according to the size of the district or school in which a candidate is running.
In the election, Reflection won the presidential and vice presidential races, three class officer seats and 26 Senate seats. Spectrum won four class officer seats and 26 senate seats. Avanti won five class officer seats and 22 senate seats.
86 new senators have had no experience with budget hearings. He said they should be introduced to the proposed fee increase before regular budget hearings begin next week so they will be more qualified to make a final decision about the petition in Anril
THE UNION Memorial Corporation's Board of Directors also needs tentative approval to continue planning the Union's transition to the Board of Regents in April.
The Senate has no authoritative power to reject or accept the $1 increase but its recommendation will be taken into consideration by the chancellor when he submits budget proposals to the Board of Regents.
Both Leben and Steve Owens, who wrote the resolution with Sherri Gray, said they thought the resolution would pass tonight with few problems but several questions.
The $1 increase will raise students' Union fees to $15 and will provide an additional budget of $0,000 for the Union's building, maintenance and custodial and administration costs.
THE LARGEST operational cost increases will arise from added expenses for labor and benefits, implementation of a new unit in the Union and a rise in utility costs.
Frank Burge, Union director, told the committee last night that the Union's maintenance staff already was overworked and that because the Union was open seven days a week for 103 hours, workers had to be on duty or working more than 40 hours a week.
The Union needs to start a data processing program using the University's information Systems computer "to alleviate our accounting load and to make us more efficient," the Board's report said. "While we can eventually cut our labor costs through utilization of data processing, we cannot do that until we actually have
some programs going. We need at least one professional data processing specialist on our staff, and we need to provide funds for software machine rental and supplies."
IN ADDITION to the rise in utility costs, the Union has further costs caused by the many additions made to the initial building since 1828. Burge said. He received an order for a new steel deck, which was $154 a day for the last 30 days—a 400-day increase over last year.
If the student fee increase is dropped from the budget, board members said, the options would be to cancel three maintenance jobs, close the Union on Sundays, reduce the hours of operation each day or operate the Union at a loss.
THE BOARD'S report estimated that an additional $33,188 in income would be made from increases in office and room rentals and in service charges.
Adding the $36,000 expected from the $1 fee increase to students, total income will be $74,138, $24,402 short of the $85,450 needed to meet costs.
Burge said the remainder of the needed funds would have to come from profits from other Union operations and from increased conservation measures.
"We searched our hearts and minds and we didn't have the courage to come to you all for more than a $1 increase." Burge said. "We wanted a spanking than ask for another dollar."
At tonight's meeting, the Senate also will vote on whether to allocate $10 from 1976-77 for new campus expansion. In Friendship, a three-year-old Organization created to promote sharing between U.S. and foreign students at the University. It was funded by the Senate since Spring 1975.
The Senate also will continue to nominate and elect student University Council members and will nominate and elect three students to SenEx seats.
Death of McCollum Hall resident judged accidental by KU police
The University of Kansas Police Department officially ruled yesterday that the death of Thomas Hoelting, Lawrence, Neb., graduate student, was accidental.
Hoeling, 23, fell to his death Monday morning from an eighth floor window in McColm Hall. In a statement issued by Mike Thomas, director of the KU Police Department, the possibility of homicide was ruled out.
KU police said they had ruled the death accidental because they hadn't found any evidence.
ment assisted the KU police in investigating the case.
Two women in Ellsworth Hall sighted the body on the roof of McColum's lobby Monday morning and reported it to police. The KBI and the Lawrence Police Depart-
Hoeling, a graduate student in sociology, had lived in McCollum about a year. He transferred to KU from Benedictine College in Atchison last semester and had been working as a teaching assistant in the sociology department.
A rosary for Hooting will be said in the Sacred Heart Church in Lawrence, Neb., tonight and the funeral will be there tomorrow.
Burial will be in the Sacred Heart Cemetery in Lawrence, Neb. The Martin Butler Funeral Home in Blue Hill, Neb., is in charge of fire arrangements
Hofling is survived by his parents, Mr
and Mrs. Allo Hofling. Lawrence, Neb
Fast pitch wind-up
Staff photo by GEORGE MILLENER
Susanne Nicolet, Cimarron senior, put all her effort into a pitch during yesterday's Chi Omega's intramural softball practice near Robinson gymnasium.
Report says KU to lack class space
The University of Kansas has been singled out as an exception in a report that most Kansas universities and colleges may excess office and classroom space by 1980.
The report, by the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit, concluded that, unlike the five other Board of Regents colleges and universities, KU probably will suffer from a lack of space for the projected number of students.
"In the post audit report, the university of Kansas really looked pretty good," Max Lucas, director of facilities planning, said yesterday.
"The report indicated KU would have a lack of space in 1800, even if the report's recommendations were followed. All the teams have been shown to have excess space." Lacsai said.
THE REPORT, made public last week, said that most schools would have too few students to make it worthwhile to begin or end school year in classroom buildings. It said there could be an excess 2 million square feet of space in buildings at the six state schools by 1980.
included.
The division recommended the instruction plans be temporarily suspended at Emporia Kansas State College, where a psychology and education building is planned, and at Port Hays Kansas State University, where it is planning a classroom and office facility.
THE MOST dramatic enrollment drops are projected at Emporia, where a 37 per cent forecast; at Kansas State College, Pittsburgh; and cent; and at Fort Hays, 30.0 per cent.
The fiscal 2018 capital improvements bill has been held up in the Senate Ways and Means Committee pending consideration of the report, according to State Sen. Wint Winter, R-Ottawa, chairman of the committee.
KU's chances of receiving funding for additions to Robinson Gymnasium and Malot Hall won't be adversely affected by the report, he said.
Lucas said that the division prepared its projections by estimating the enrollment and amount of building space for a future year, and then comparing that ratio with an "ideal" person per square foot ratio developed in the late 1960s.
THE DIVISION said in its report that the Regents wanted excess space for the schools. The Regents, in an eight-page reply to the report, suggested the division didn't understand the Regents' sophisticated methods for determining space needs.
The Regents also denied the report's allegation that $13,000 had been overpaid to a construction company when Wescoe Hall was erected.
Three contracts were let by the state architect's office for the work on Wescoe. Two were awarded to the company named by the report, an act that, according to Lucas, would be illegal under present law, although it was legal at the time.
Staff drawing by DAVID MILLER
Sale of Star brings few changes mixed reactions from old employs
By LEROY JOHNSTON
Staff Reporter
Like the sale of any family business, the sale of the employee-owned Kansas City Star Feb. 15 to Capital Cities Communications, Inc., was as much an emotional event as an economic necessity.
Despite fears that the new management might cause drastic changes in the paper, few have occurred, and most employees now say they are eager to work with their new bosses to improve the paper.
CAPITAL CITIES付 $125 million for the Kansas City Star Co., which includes, in addition to the morning Times and the evening Star, a paper mill in Wisconsin and a paper distribution plant in Missouri. Of $30 employees, about 20 employees each close to one per cent of the stock. They bought the stock in which Capital Cities bought the stock for about $140 per share—close to twice its book value of $8.50.
"We had a family relationship on the Star and that is gone now," Joe Lastikel, Washington bureau chief, said yesterday. "But we wish the management well and I don't see anyone trying to cause problems—in fact, people are working harder."
Opponents of the sale argued that the board of directors, many of whom are what the employees call 'one per centers,' were merely following a secretive, and purposefully kept the negotiations secret.
W. W. BAKER, Star president and editor, said the sale was necessary for economic reasons. He said the paper was unable to generate enough money to buy a stock to Star employees, the only people allowed to work.
Baker said the price of the stock had risen to the point that many young employees couldn't afford to buy it. Employees previously had been able to get loans at a one per cent interest rate from the paper to buy stock. The loans later became too costly to offer.
As a result, Baker said, the last two times the
company offered its stock for sale, the subscriptions were undersold as with 39 per cent.
IF AN EMPLOYE DIE, the company had to buy back the stock from him. Baker said.
He said that although the company's pension fund was growing, federal regulations prohibit having more than 10 per cent of a corporation's stock in a company. He said that he was forced to buy back some stock on that basis.
"As far as secrecy, we followed SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) regulations, which required that the initial tender offer be secret, and that no other tender offer, we carried the story the same day," he said.
THE ONLY other way to have made the decision would have been to meet with all $30 stockholders—an impossibility because many of them were scattered throughout the country, he said.
Capital Cities needed to obtain 75 per cent of the stock to purchase the company. If an employee didn't sell his stock before Feb. 9, Capital Cities wouldn't have 135 per share. However, all the stock was sold.
Lastelić said that he didn't agree with the company lawyers on the interpretation of the secrecy regulations, and that the negotiations kept people in suspense for about two months. Also, he said, no employee was ever able to find out whether any other offers to buy the company had been made.
"Let them in on the ground floor with Capital Cities," he said. "It's a growing company..."
"I have a lot of sentiments toward home ownership but I did not oppose the sale. I had faith in it."
John White, circulation director, said that many of the newer employees were upset because they were getting in on the ground floor of the Star, meaning they had little chance to
"THE BOARD of directors made middle-aged men and women on the paper unhappy—people who were looking forward to the day when they could run the paper and own stock," he said.
Capital Cities for ideas in products and sales. The only change is that it has put people on the ball.
THE ONLY person from Capital Cities who is involved directly with the daily operation of the paper is Jim Hale, a 94-year newspaperman who works for The Star-Telgram for a year and a half. As chief executive and chairman of the board, Hale filled a post that had been vacant since Paul V. Miner
Hale, who has final authority on the paper, said he would study all aspects of its operation but would not provide any specific guidance.
Hale has been on the paper three weeks, and said he has made few changes. However, Hale said it was his idea to remove the qualifier, "The Morning Kansas City Star" from the Times front-page flag Feb. 25. He said he notified no one about the impending change because he wasn't obligated to.
"YOU CULDN'T tell which it was—the Star or the Times," he said. "The decision was not the editorial heresy of pererogative. The chief executive indictation. There was no point in notifying anybody."
Hale said he had no plans to reduce the staff or make salary changes. He said that after Capital Cities took over the Star-Telegram in 1974, the employees on that paper remained about the same.
Hale said he was concentrating on improving the mechanical quality of the paper, which had suffered from poorly-registered color reproduction. As a result, the paper has been running only single-color reproductions. He said the dil-lith presses used to print the paper had also been jamming.
AMONG OTHER changes, the Star has eliminated galaxy proofs (first copies of stories), is instituting a real estate section and plans to remodel the building's lobby.