“The Board of Trustees agreed to remove the caps on higher end staff salaries, and the University of West Alabama agreed to find the money in the budget to pay these salaries and not raise tuition,” The Board of Trustees Chairman Preston “Mann” Minus said yesterday during an interview.

President of UWA, Dr. Richard Holland said, “That both sides agreed to not pursue the matter any further.”

The two sides meet on Wednesday in Montgomery, Holland and Minus finally agreed to settle this dispute rather than follow the whole contempt of court charge through the judicial system.

“This whole process was done to cut the costs in the budget and not raise the tuition on the students of our university,” Minus said.

The Motion for Contempt was original filed by Tommy Gallion, a Montgomery attorney for Minus and the majority board of trustees on November 26. The suit was filed to make sure that President Holland approved the budget as set by the board back in November.

“We balanced the budget by putting the salary caps on the higher end salaries and asking for increases of five percent in the undergraduate tuition and 15.5 percent in graduate tuition,” Minus said.

“The lawyers went behind closed doors for about an hour and came back out the issue was settled and the matter was dropped,” President of the Faculty Senate, Dr. Richard Schellhammer said.

Minus and the rest of the Board of Trustees now face another lawsuit stemming from the notion of there is two boards at UWA a majority board led by Minus and a minority board led by Thomas Umphrey. The suit to see who is the true chairman of the board will be settled by Judge Tracy McCooey in Montgomery on February 17.