I guess we should be encouraged that the UW-Oshkosh Foundation is starting to divest itself of some of its assets to pay the money is owes for projects that resulted in its bankruptcy. Over the weekend, the Chancellor’s House went up for sale on the open market. But the asking price reveals yet again the out and out fraud that was perpetrated by previous University and Foundation leadership.
With an asking price of just under $400,000 the Foundation is looking at taking a loss of 50-grand on the Chancellor’s House. Former Chancellor Richard Wells was paid $450-thousand for the building in 2013. It was a transaction that raised some eyebrows at the time, but we were all assured this was a fair price. Remember, in 2013 the Oshkosh real estate market was not nearly as red hot as it is now–so paying about $100-thousand above fair market value was questionable at best. Even with the run-up in home prices since then, the current value doesn’t come close to reaching what the Foundation thought the property was worth five years ago.
In the light of what was revealed a couple of years later with Wells having made secret transfers to the Foundation to cover debts it couldn’t possibly hope to repay–after making guarantees to banks that are strictly prohibited by state policy–you can’t help but see the overpayment for the house as a nice little “bonus payment”. Since he was hit with the civil lawsuit by the University System for these actions, Wells has maintained nothing improper was ever done, because he “didn’t personally benefit from them”. But the gross overpayment for the Chancellor’s House stands out as an obvious example of financial gain provided by the group that his actions benefited.
So now even if the Foundation gets its full asking price–which given the “uniqueness” of the Chancellor’s House and it’s less than convenient location is a stretch–it will still result in a $50,000 shortfall which the Foundation is doing everything in its powers to force taxpayers to cover. If that ends up being the case, maybe we should crowd-source the purchase of the home. Then we can get Chip and JoAnna Gaines to come in and completely remake the property. They could do a combined Dateline/Fixer Upper special–where Keith Morrison spends the first hour detailing the sordid financial transactions and hidden transfers (Oh those pesky financial receipts)–and then the Gaines could use some reclaimed barn doors from out in Omro to completely redecorate the interior in the second hour. That should immediately increase demand for the house and bring in buyers from all over the country who want to live in a “famous house”–and then overpay, leaving us (and not Former Chancellor Wells) with a tidy little profit.
