Mr. Greg Rush, Vice President for Finance and Administration/CFO, introduced Mr. Craig Turner of CRM to provide an update on the new residence hall construction. Mr. Turner stated that KSU was able to secure an excellent rate when the bonds were sold. In fact, he said that it was the best financial package he has ever sold among all of the P3's he has worked with. Additionally, the same construction package bought today would be eight to ten million dollars more due to rising costs of materials. All in all, everything went very well.
Mr. Turner provided a visual demonstration of what the residence halls will look like upon completion. There will be 410 beds and 300-350 person capacity in the dining hall. The dorms are being constructed to be as energy efficient as possible. The first payment will not be due until March of 2024 which will give the University some time to build up revenue. He stated that construction is on schedule with completion expected in November 2022 and move-in projected to occur in December 2022.
Hon. Travis Powell, General Counsel and Vice President of CPE, reported that the Search Committee had an excellent first meeting. Kenny Daugherty from Myers McRae provided an overview of the search process for the Committee and the Committee had productive conversations about how the search process would work. For anyone interested, these meetings can be viewed live on zoom or at a later time on the University's YouTube channel.
Mr. Powell stated that there is no formal timeline for the search process. Currently, the Committee is gathering information for the leadership profile which is scheduled for approval on December 17, 2021. The Committee members will then compile all of the candidate information and meet in closed session at the end of March to discuss the candidates. From that pool, the Committee will pick 12-13 candidates to invite to a zoom interview. After the zoom interview, they will choose five to six candidates to meet in person in an undisclosed off-campus location to maintain confidentiality. The Committee will then take action on two to three candidates for Board consideration and will continue the search process if they don’t get the right candidate.
Mr. Powell reiterated that all constituent groups will have the opportunity to participate in this process.
Dr. Aaron Thompson, President of CPE, commenced the update by stating that the Management and Improvement Plan has been approved by the CPE Board and it will now go to the Governor. CPE has also presented the outcome of the financial analysis to the Governor. The next part of the process will be restructuring the budget.
3