IRS heat on CUNY housing allowance
The IRS is probing whether CUNY has been improperly paying for the housing of Chancellor James Milliken and other lodging to some of its college presidents, The Post has learned.
CUNY has not been counting the value of the housing as income, so Milliken and the other administrators have not been taxed on it. In the case of the chancellor’s Upper East Side apartment, the rental is worth almost $250,000 a year.
The probe was discussed at an administrative meeting late last year when one CUNY honcho, who was soon to step down, said he regretted leaving “with the IRS auditing the presidents and the chancellor,” according to someone present at the meeting.
Another administrator said in an e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, that if the IRS determined taxes were due then CUNY would foot the bills and not the individuals.
In addition to the chancellor, CUNY provides housing to the presidents of Baruch, Brooklyn and Lehman colleges, the College of Staten Island and Medgar Evers College. Other presidents get $5,000-a-month housing allowances.
A CUNY spokesman told The Post that the IRS was doing “a routine review” of 2014 payroll records at its senior colleges and said housing provided to employees as a condition of their employment “is generally not taxable.”
The rep said the university does not believe the presidents will be hit with a tax bill.
But the IRS in 2014 found that the president of Ohio State University should pay taxes on his on-campus house. The university voted to cover the cost of the taxes for him, which came out to $19,000.
Milliken scored a sweet housing deal when he took the helm of the public university system in 2014.
He selected a four-bedroom Upper East Side apartment with the help of Iris Weinshall, Sen. Charles Schumer’s wife, who was then a CUNY vice chancellor. It was the most expensive one he viewed, according to a CUNY insider.
CUNY pays about $20,000 per month for the lavish 3,000-squarefoot abode. Milliken, who is stepping down at the end of the school year, is paid $670,000 annually.
CUNY said at the time that it was paying for the apartment through its affiliated Research Foundation using the proceeds from the sale of a prior chancellor’s residence.
But use of Research Foundation money and funds from other nonprofits affiliated with CUNY schools has recently come under scrutiny after former City College President Lisa Coico allegedly used such money to pay for personal expenses including furniture.
Coico stepped down last year amid a federal probe of the alleged financial misconduct, which she has denied.
State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott has been conducting a wide-ranging probe into CUNY, including compensation packages and how the nonprofit foundations spend their cash.