Admin. to study economic relationships

The university is hiring an independent firm to study the economic interplay between the university and the city in an effort to ease tension and provide a foundation for future financial talks with the city of College Park, administrators said.

The study, which Vice President for Administrative Affairs Ann Wylie said would cost about $20,000 and take a few months, will examine factors such as the costs and benefits of student housing to the city. The university invited the city to co-sponsor the study, but city officials said cash-strapped College Park may not have the money and wanted more specifics about how it would play out.

"This study is really intended to help the city and the university understand the kind of economic implications of our partnership together because economic issues come up constantly in decisions," university President Dan Mote said. "Probably the most common topic of conversation with the city is who's costing who how much."

The university introduced the idea in a Feb. 7 letter to the city, but after not receiving a response, university administrators selected Sage Policy Group Inc. of Baltimore to conduct the study. College Park Mayor Andrew Fellows said city officials would consider the idea at a work session Tuesday.

"If we had unlimited money, I think we'd be interested in sharing the costs of the study, but times being what they are, it may be difficult to spend the money on this," Fellows said.

Even without financial support, Mote said the university would appreciate the city's endorsement of the study. Without the study, he said there would be no factual basis for future financial discussions between the city and university.

But Fellows added he's concerned a study funded wholly by the university might not be completely objective.

And College Park City Council members also questioned exactly what factors the study would address.

"The devil's always in the details," District 1 Councilman Patrick Wojahn said. "There's a number of different ways in which the university impacts the city, and I would hope that if they do a study like this, that the study would take all of those into account."

The relationship between the city and university has always been strained, but two recent issues brought things to a head, Wylie said.

First, the university considered challenging whether it is legally responsible for $550,000 in taxes the Athletics Department pays the city. Then, the university bought The Washington Post Co.'s College Park printing plant, spurring a debate about how much the city deserved in compensation for lost property tax revenue from the site.

College Park spends at least $800,000 more than it takes in from the university in taxes on services for student residents, including trash cleanup, public safety and code enforcement, according to a report prepared by the city in December.

The report notes 37 percent of the city's land is exempt from property taxes because it is owned by the university.

Still, city officials said they had more pressing concerns than co-sponsoring the study, such as how to cover the costs of this winter's snow removal.

"They paying for it? That's fine, go ahead and do it," District 2 Councilman Jack Perry said. "As long as they're paying for it, I don't have a difficulty with that. Don't ask us to pay for it, that's for sure."

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