MU lacks funds for Ellis Fischel construction

Funds from For All We Call Mizzou can be allocated to construction.

By Eva Dou

Published Jan. 30, 2009

The construction of the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center at MU has been suspended along with 30 other projects supposed to be funded by the 2007 sale of Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority assets.

Authorities found MOHELA lacked sufficient capital to fund the projects, something that legislators and MU administrators said they saw coming.

"We were hoping against hope that something could be done," Chancellor Brady Deaton said.

The center was to receive $31.2 million to help finance the construction of a $50 million facility next to University Hospital. It is the only hospital in the state devoted solely to the research and treatment of cancer. Across the state, 14 universities expected part of the $350 million Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative fund, supported by the MOHELA sale. MU would have received the largest amount, totaling $51.2 million for 12 projects.

It was not to be.

"That money doesn't exist," Gov. Jay Nixon said to reporters at the MU Sinclair School of Nursing on Thursday. "It's $100 million that is not in the bank."

Nixon said he had opposed former Gov. Matt Blunt's proposal in 2007 to fund the projects with the loan authority sale. Now with insufficient funds, the governor said construction of the cancer center had to be cancelled so remaining funds could go to finishing projects that had already started.

"I'm not going to stand in front of the people of Missouri and promise something for a fund that doesn't have money for that project," Nixon said.

The news came as a disappointment to local legislators, MU administrators and students. "I think it's a devastating blow to the University of Missouri and a blow to medical care in mid-Missouri," Sen. Kurt Schaeffer, R-Columbia, said.

Both Schaeffer and the center director Charles Caldwell, said they would work with the governor's office to try to restore the funds.

"The reality is that we will have to work with the governor's office and see if we can find an alternative source of state funding since the center will cost more to build than the $31 million it was appropriated by the state," Caldwell said.

Deaton said he would also investigate other ways to fund the project.

"We will stay on board," Deaton said. "We believe this is a vital project for the university and a vital project for the state."

When asked whether money from MU's fundraising campaign might be directed toward the center, Deaton responded positively.

"It should be part of the Mizzou campaign," he said, referring to the For All We Call Mizzou fundraising campaign that netted $1 billion as of November 2008.

MU nursing student Brittany Waller, who stood with her classmates behind the podium during Nixon's address at MU, said the announcement of the cancer center's suspension came as a surprise.

"Especially with Ellis Fischel being such a specialty center, I did not expect it would get cut," she said. Waller said she feels special ties to the cancer center, as her mother worked there her entire career. She had hoped to work there too after graduation.

Although the Fischel Center project is no longer being considered, 10 other projects still may get funding.

-- Staff writer Wes Duplantier contributed to this report.