Trustees expected to approve student fee bonds

IU's board of trustees will meet this week to try and make sense of a number of issues dealing with University dollars and cents. \nThe Finance and Audit Committee will meet from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. today in room 206 of the University Palace Conference Center on the IU-Purdue University Indianapolis campus. The meeting will center on IU money issues. The committee will hear from five of the University's investment managers to review their progress, said Trustee President Frederick Eichhorn Jr.\n"We put out benchmarks for the investment managers, and we try to see if they are doing a good enough job," Eichhorn said. "Each manager oversees a different fund for the University, and we hold each one to a strict benchmark."\nThe committee will also hear a review of how the University is investing its money.\nGoing along with money issues, another big-ticket issue the committee will discuss is whether or not to approve the issue of student fee bonds.\nEichhorn said the University has the ability to borrow money with the approval of legislatures. The bonds come into play when the University receives the promise that it will be able to repay the borrowed money with the student fee bonds.\nEichhorn said he believes the bond issue will more than likely be approved. He said this issue is important to IU because bond issues, state funds and private funds finance the majority of University projects.\n"We are always trying to move our projects forward," Eichhorn said. "We go about funding these projects with a composite of all these capital sources."\nThe board of trustees will also meet Dec. 2 at IUPUI to discuss long-range planning and external relations.\n-- Contact staff writer Kristin Huett at khuett@indiana.edu.