All those improvements to Memorial Stadium late in the 20th century still haven’t been paid for.

Now the Kansas University Athletic Corp. wants to take even longer to retire the revenue bonds used to finance those renovations.

Theresa Klinkenberg, KU’s chief of business and financial planning and the KUAC board treasurer, was given the OK on Tuesday to stretch the original 15-year loan to 25 years.

“It does cost more to extend,” Klinkenberg told the six-member board at its first regular meeting of the school year, “but I think for the relief on debt service it’s a tradeoff.”

The KUAC, working through the Kansas Development Finance Authority, issued about $30 million in revenue bonds in 1998 for a two-phase program that included a revamping underneath the aging structure and the addition of a new press box with two levels of donor suites.

Under terms on those bonds, KUAC is required to pay $2.5 million a year through the year 2013. Extending the bonds to 2023 would lower the debt service to about $1.5 million a year.

“Twenty-five years isn’t an unreasonable length of time for a project like that,” Klinkenberg said.

Sean Lester, a KU associate athletic director, presented both five-year and 10-year extension options. The five-year plan would have reduced the debt service to $1.8 million.

In choosing the 10-year option, the KUAC board instructed Klinkenberg to pursue the refinancing through KDFA.

“We’d like to get into the market before the end of the year,” she said. “I think we have a good story to tell with our projected revenue from the basketball points system and from the (Big 12) conference.”

Knocking about a million dollars off the annual debt service would help the KUAC meet its ambitious fiscal-year budget of approximately $35 million, up nearly $8 million from a year ago.

The controversial points system for men’s basketball seating in Allen Fieldhouse will go a long way toward covering the budget increase, but the bottom line also projects a healthy increase in football ticket sales.

Board member Don Green, a professor of petroleum engineering who serves as KU’s faculty representative to the Big 12 and NCAA, asked athletic director Lew Perkins, the board moderator, how football ticket sales were going.

Announced attendances were around 40,000 for the Tulsa game two weeks ago and 41,000 for Saturday’s clash with Toledo, although the latter crowd contained a few thousand high school band members.

Perkins replied that he didn’t have specific figures, but added: “I would sense we’re right on target. We had a lot of walk-ups.”

Kansas will play Saturday at Northwestern, then return home Sept. 25 to meet Texas Tech.

“I would guess if we do well against Northwestern, we’ll have a sellout for Texas Tech,” Perkins said.

Green asked that the subject of football ticket sales be placed on the agenda of the next KUAC board meeting Nov. 10.

Under new business, Perkins said he would like to hold at least one of the five annual board meetings at a site other than Lawrence.

“The endowment association does a great job of going out in the state,” Perkins said. “I’d like to do that, too. We can have a business session and then socialize. I’d get us transportation. That’s not a problem.”

In addition to Perkins, Green and Klinkenberg, the board members are vice provosts Don Steeples and Marlesa Roney, and student body president Steve Munch.

Under a restructuring plan approved last April, the remainder of the board — consisting mostly of professors and alumni — will serve in an advisory capacity only. The first meeting of that group will be Sept. 24.