In 1993, UNM administrators converted the Zuni half of Hokona Hall from student dorms to office space for the College of Education - but Housing and Food Services was never compensated for the equivalent of the building's equity.
Housing did receive some compensation in the form of reductions in operating costs and debt service, said Randy Boeglin, UNM dean of students and director of residence life.
"But housing never got any money for that building," Boeglin said. "It has irked me for years."
Boeglin added that housing had paid for new windows and a new H-vac system, with student money, just before the conversion to office space.
"It's like buying a house," Boeglin said. "The house is still operable, still livable. Then it's converted and you get a reduction in operating costs. Students paid for that building."
Hokona was built in 1957 and financed by a debt, issued by the University and paid off by students living in the hall, said Dave McKinney, who was UNM's vice president for business and finance at the time of the building's conversion.
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McKinney said Zuni was converted for two reasons: the College of Education needed the space for new offices and the number of housing applicants was down. He added that students living in all the residence halls prior to the conversion were paying more in rent because Zuni was not full.
"It was a way of helping out the debt students were paying - a way of off-loading the cost," McKinney said. "It shifted the debt burden and operating costs from the students to the University."
Bob Schulte, director of business services for housing and food services, said University administrators closed down a number of properties at that time and converted them into office space.
"The time was, unfortunately, ripe for it," Schulte said. "Occupancy wasn't what it should have been and we were trying to keep our staff down. I guess we were just in the wrong place at the right time."
Schulte said he made the best case he could for more complete compensation and the best he could do was a reduction in operating costs.
"It would have been hard to make a case that, 'damn it we paid for that building, damn it we should be paid for it,'" Schulte said.
In some years, there is an over demand for on-campus housing, but in others, the opposite holds true, Boeglin said.
"The nature of housing is cyclical," he said.
There is a separation between housing, which gets money from students, Boeglin said, and the University, which gets money from the state Legislature and a University funding formula.
That discrepancy, he added, is the justification for compensatory need in the form of money.
McKinney said it would be difficult to say if housing should have been given more than a reduction in operating costs.
"I don't recall an equity determination ever having been made," McKinney said.
Housing raised a two-fold, internal question after the conversion, Boeglin said, "to determine whether this decision was propitious."
First, Boeglin said, was the internal equity issue.
"Should there be compensation for these student fees?" he said. "And second, 'is this a good decision considering the cyclical nature of housing?'"
Neither question, Boeglin said, has ever been answered. He added that two years after the conversion, housing was once again full, necessitating the creation of plans for a new dorm - Redondo Hall, eventually built in 2001.
"And building the new hall brought in new debt service," Boeglin said.
Housing was at capacity last fall, Boeglin said.
