Oakland City University’s president is now saying multiple sources of money worth millions of dollars will hit the school’s bank accounts next week, potentially allowing laid-off employees to finally collect on more than a month’s worth of missing paychecks.
But similar promises have repeatedly fizzled. And some former employees who spoke to the Courier & Press say they don’t believe things will change now.
In a Wednesday evening internal email to ex-faculty and staff obtained by the Courier & Press, OCU President Ron Dempsey laid out a schedule of the alleged forthcoming payments. Here’s what we know.
Money from an unnamed donor/’funder’
The first – a lump sum from an unnamed donor – will supposedly come Monday. In the past, Dempsey has put the sum at $1 million.
But he’s been teasing its imminent arrival since early May, and it’s yet to materialize. Each time he sets a deadline he pushes it back yet again, blaming a complicated array of hazy banking issues. The school has missed issuing paychecks on May 5, May 19, June 5 and now June 19.
Where it’s coming from is apparently a secret, as well. When Dempsey first mentioned the prospect of the money on May 7, he told ex-employees the “source” had the funds in hand and would wire them to a U.S. Bank account of their own. It was unclear why the source would need to wire money they already had to themselves.
Either way, that never occurred. And since then, Dempsey has outlined several murky twists in the money’s fate.
In the last couple weeks, he’s begun referring to both a “funder” and a “donor,” implying that the person or persons tasked with relaying money to OCU for payroll (“the donor”) is actually getting that money from a third party (“the funder”). On June 5, for example, Dempsey wrote to former employees that “the donor is waiting to hear from the funder if the wire (transfer) has been sent.”
There’s apparently been trouble between the two entities as well. Earlier this week, Dempsey hinted at a brief falling out.
“Over the weekend one of the donors said they had lost faith in the funder and that the funder just kept putting them off,” he wrote on Tuesday. “However, faith has been restored and the funder is ‘supposedly’ moving money into their new business accounts and will wire the donor tomorrow.
“For me, when it is in the donors’ accounts, I will believe.”
That transfer didn’t occur either. Instead, the “donor” and “funder” had a meeting on Wednesday, Dempsey wrote. And because of the Juneteenth bank holiday on Friday, the money’s arrival was pushed to Monday.
The Courier & Press sent Dempsey several questions about the “donor” and “funder” in an attempt to clear up the confusion. Is the “funder” the actual source of the money, while the “donor” is serving as a middle man? If so, why can’t the funder just send the money directly to OCU?
Dempsey never responded. On Thursday, an ex-OCU employee who asked not be publicly identified said they didn’t believe the money was coming.
“No one does,” they said.
A $4 million patent down payment
Then there’s the patent.
On June 10, Dempsey told the Courier & Press that investors – again, unnamed – were closing in on a deal to purchase a carbon-capture technology patent the university holds. He said the school would receive a down payment of $4 million “next week” and use the money to fund payroll.
That money is now pushed to Wednesday, June 24, Dempsey wrote to ex-employees Thursday night.
OCU previously promised a patent deal in early April: a day after it send a WARN notice to Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development detailing a potential “mass layoff” of every school employee. In a Facebook post, OCU said the patent deal would likely go through near the beginning of May, negating the need for layoffs.
That didn’t come to pass, and OCU eventually laid off the majority of its workforce and shuttered undergraduate programs for at least a year.
Dempsey didn’t respond to the Courier & Press’ questions about the patent deal this week, either.
The sale of buildings
OCU currently has multiple university-owned buildings up for sale, including a Deaconess clinic on campus.
In Wednesday’s email, Dempsey the sale of the clinic was “proceeding.” He’s previously told ex-employees money for payroll could come from that, too.
Meanwhile, multiple current and former faculty and staff are suing the school in an attempt to obtain their rightful pay. As of June 11, 18 people had signed on to a federal class-action suit in U.S. District Court. And another employee, James Wilder, is suing OCU on similar grounds in Gibson Superior Court.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Emails: OCU president says millions of dollars could come next week
Reporting by Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press | USA TODAY Network
