Reeves: No one on CMPA board believes two pledges by Studer

IN reporter Jeremy Morrison interviewed today CMPA board member Jim Reeves who is the board liaison with the CMPA attorney Ed Fleming. Here is Jeremy’s report:

CMPA Board member Jim Reeves said he doesn’t think there’s anyone on the board who believes the Studers are on the line for two separate donations.

“You’ve got to understand that this never came up,” Reeves explained. “It just came up as a possibility after the staff revealed we were $4-mil in the hole and not $1.7.”

Reeves said he only found out about what would effectively amounted to an additional $2 million on the books after the budget problem — what he calls “a bad case of the shorts” — was discussed.

“If that was a possibility,” he asked, “why didn’t anybody tell us that there was another $2 million out there lurking.”

Reeves said he believes Wednesday’s meeting of the CMPA would end with an agreement reached. He seemed to think such an action redundant.

“I see us approving the agreement — which we’ve already done once,” Reeves predicted.