UI financial officer resigns
MOSCOW, Idaho – The University of Idaho’s top financial officer has resigned less than a year after she started, dealing another setback to efforts to restore stability to the position after the school’s failed expansion effort in Boise.
University President Tim White said Nancy Dunn, who started Jan. 30 as vice president for finance and administration, told him she would resign effective Oct. 21 because she’s still battling a rare but treatable form of cancer and will be unable to return to the job.
Lloyd Mues, who has been serving in Dunn’s place, will continue at least until June 30, 2009, said Joni Kirk, a university spokeswoman. Dunn had been earning $182,000 annually. Mues’ salary is $155,625.
Mues is the fourth person in the position since Jerry Wallace was placed on administrative leave in 2003 after the botched $136 million, three-building University Place project in Boise. Since then, Jay Kenton left after less than a year; David Chichester, a former Starbucks Corp. executive, got more than $20,000 a month for a half-year interim posting; and Dunn stayed nine months to help revitalize finances hurt by the ill-fated expansion and chronic budget overruns.
“This approach will allow for the needed stability and clarity of focus and activities,” Kirk said, adding she couldn’t comment on Dunn’s health. “The University of Idaho community continues to send our very best wishes to Nancy as she faces a difficult and serious health situation.”
Dunn has been on unpaid sick leave since April 21, Kirk said.
She’s been living in Baltimore near family, where she’s being treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
White has said the school’s financial health is on the mend after settling all civil litigation over the University Place project. The school received $2.5 million in a settlement in March, but a criminal investigation continues.
A lawsuit filed in 2005 by the school’s nonprofit foundation against the developer of University Place is to go to trial Jan. 22. The University of Idaho Foundation sued Civic Partners Inc., the developer, as well as law firms and attorneys the foundation has accused of legal malpractice.
“There is no indication that it will settle,” Dennis Faucher told the foundation’s annual meeting this week, the Lewiston Tribune reported. Faucher heads the foundation committee that oversees court cases stemming from University Place.
Of the three University Place buildings planned, a single one – the Idaho Water Center – was erected. The foundation claims it lost $26 million on the aborted project, though it has since recovered four-fifths that amount, it said. In the last year, new money has boosted the foundation’s coffers by 12 percent to $227 million, officials said.