SPRINGFIELD, IL (Chambana Today) – The Illinois Audit Commission unanimously has agreed how the University of Illinois lost over $30 million of taxpayer money on a failed project called the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI).
The audit was requested by State Senator Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet) calling for a full performance audit of President Tim Killeen’s signature DPI. After another “mission change” in the eight-year-old DPI program, the U of I abandoned the South Chicago Loop project. This led to a loss of at least $30,000,000 to Illinois taxpayers.
Senator Rose filed LAC Resolution #168, which directs the Illinois Auditor General to investigate how the U of I wasted $30 million on a project that never broke ground.
“President Tim Killeen has changed the mission of this project so many times it’s hard to keep track,” said Senator Rose. “And every change has cost taxpayers more and more money. I want to know where every last penny went and why the mission scope changed so many times under Killeen. The taxpayers deserve to know. More importantly, going forward, if DPI is to remain on the books, it should be led exclusively by the Urbana-Champaign campus and its world-class researchers, not by President Tim Killeen’s failed leadership. Killeen has had 8 years to get this done, and all he has to show for it is $30 million in wasted taxpayer dollars.”
The project launched seven years ago promising a transformative $285 million tech and research hub in Chicago’s South Loop. The project collapsed under delays, shifting objectives, and ballooning costs. The university eventually scrapped the site, leaving taxpayers on the hook for over $30 million—with total losses potentially nearing $40 million.
“It’s time to put a fresh set of eyes on DPI. We will see what the Auditor General’s office comes up with, in the meantime, I’m calling on the U of I to fully invest in the future leadership of DPI in the Urbana campus and out of the President’s office – he had his chance,” Rose concluded.