Brandeis is involved in the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Massachusetts, an effort to get the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to adopt the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act to ease endowment restrictions, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French wrote in a Feb. 19 e-mail to the Justice."Brandeis supports enactment of UPMIFA and Brandeis is involved in the AICUM effort," French wrote.

AICUM is coordinating with other private Massachusetts colleges and universities to get UPMIFA enacted by the Massachusetts state legislature. Joe Baerlein, a temporary Brandeis spokesman for the University's public relations firm Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications, Inc., told the Justice yesterday that AICUM is a "trade association for all the independent colleges, and they work in concert on public policy and legislative issues on behalf of all their members."

Under the current law, which is based on the Uniform Management of Institutional Funds Act, Brandeis is confined to using the money in its reserve fund, which French projects will be eradicated in two years. The law limits the use of an institution's endowment to only when the value of the investment is greater than when the funds were donated. Due to the recent downturn in the economy, the value of the investments that make up Brandeis' endowment is lower than when they were donated.

French wrote in a Feb. 2 e-mail to the Justice, "Most of the donor-designated endowment that is budgeted for operating support is unavailable for spending because the funds are below the original donated value." Only approximately $85 million is available to spend in quasi-endowment funds and scheduled to be withdrawn in fiscal 2009 and 2010.

In a Feb. 11 article in the Wall Street Journal, Baerlein was quoted as saying that no one at Brandeis had reviewed the legislation for UPMIFA. However, Baerlein told the Justice yesterday that as of now, Brandeis' involvement with the UPMIFA legislation is that "AICUM has gotten involved on behalf of its members."

Some students at Brandeis have tried to put together a student initiative to try to change the Massachusetts law, but Student Union Director of Communications Jamie Ansorge '09, one of those students, wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that "It is unclear to us and the administration over whether such a decision (to dip into the endowment) would be 'prudent.'"

If the law were changed, French wrote in a Feb. 6 e-mail to the Justice that "such a decision to use endowment principal would be made by the Brandeis Trustees within the context of criteria established by [Massachusetts] law. At this point, this is speculative since the [Massachusetts] legislature has not passed such authorization."

In recent weeks, the Student Union had been organizing to coordinate a lobbying campaign to have the Massachusetts State Legislature adopt UPMIFA, according to a Feb. 19 e-mail from Ansorge. By changing UPMIFA, Brandeis would be allowed to tap into its endowment and help decrease the operating budget gap, Ansorge wrote. "The Union had assembled a group of students with successful lobbying experience at the state and national level who were interested in a campaign to adopt UPMIFA, in case we decided to go ahead with the project," Ansorge wrote.

But Ansorge said the project has stalled since the student group had been waiting for confirmation from the administration that the adopting of UPMIFA would be helpful in improving the current budget issue.

"We feel that a Student Union effort might be a waste of resources since the University may not tap the endowment even with the adoption of UPMIFA," Ansorge wrote in a Feb. 19 e-mail to the Justice.

French wrote in an e-mail to the Justice, "I welcome this student initiative, and I believe it will be very helpful."

"It is confusing that the school created so many committees to respond to the budget cuts without creating a committee [to lobby the state] that could potentially increase the amount of money available to the University," Adam Eisenberg '09, a member of the effort, said.

In response to whether changing the Massachusetts Law could make a difference to the school, French wrote, "In the short term, the answer is yes," in a Feb. 19 e-mail to the Justice. "In the long term, use of endowment principal for current needs would reduce the amount of endowment resources available to support the operating budget in future years," French added.

Students have asked for more transparency from the administration in regard to its restricted investments, but French explained in a Feb. 2 e-mail to the Justice that "all endowment capital is invested in commingled funds, for which Brandeis has signed confidentiality agreements. In order to adhere to these agreements, we are prohibited from disclosing information on the endowment's individual investments."

-Nashrah Rahman contributed reporting.