ISU officials said they are nearing an agreement to give the Memorial Union renovation money.

ISU Interim President Richard Seagrave said he has been acting as a moderator between the Memorial Union Board and ISU administrators.

“Vice President [of Student Affairs] Tom Hill and Vice President [of Business and Finance] Warren Madden and I had a series of meetings with representatives of the Union Board over the year,” he said. “We haven’t really finished, but we were able to get to a point where we could get an agreement.”

Madden said the administration is planning to give less than $1 million for repairs to the first floor of the Union and meeting rooms.

“The agreement doesn’t require that we’ll give anything over the current amount we give already,” he said. “The details haven’t been worked out yet.”

Currently, the administration puts forth between $500,000 to $600,000 for Union utilities, Madden said. This includes public safety, parking grounds and the grounds around the Union, which is maintained by the university facilities staff, he said.

“There’s a project we’ve been working on with the computer advisory group to install wireless communications in the MU so people can operate laptops,” Madden said. “This is the first place that we’ll be developing this technology.”

The renovation proposal will also include updating the meeting rooms within the Union, he said.

“The MU is completing a survey of what users want,” Madden said. “It will make the rooms have higher technology.”

Although the administration will give money to the Union, Seagrave said it will not change the way the Union is run.

“We’ve created a situation where there are a majority of students on the board,” he said. “We expect it will continue to be run by students.”

A problem the board is running into is how they will implement a campus-wide food service program, Seagrave said.

“We haven’t finished that yet,” he said. “It’s going to take several months.”

Madden said the agreement’s final details will be worked out in the future, despite the budget cuts the university will be undergoing.

“This is the framework of an agreement to move forward,” he said. “This is obviously challenging because of the current financial climate.”