On Wednesday, three representatives from Software Information Systems gave WKU’s Information Technology department a check for $41,725.01.

Robert Owen, vice president of Information Technology, received the giant novelty check and the real one, both made out to WKU’s IT department, in the Cornelius A Martin Regents Room on the second floor of Mass Media and Technology Hall.

“I was expecting around $30,000. This is fantastic,” Owen said, upon taking the novelty check.

SIS Client Executive Todd Fortwengler said the check was for “holding and maintaining a contract.”

“The reason we’re getting this is we have a strong relationship with SIS,” Owen said. “They have been strong supporters and partners with us at WKU. Because of that, we were able to write a contract where we got a little bit back from all the purchases in the state.”

Owen explained that the IT department once made an agreement with SIS to buy technology from the Lexington-based company.

“There’s an agreement among the universities that if one university goes through the process of doing that and it gets competitively bid, other universities don’t have to do it themselves,” Owen explained.

Once WKU bought technology from SIS for a certain price, Owen said, other groups throughout the state could buy that technology for the same price.

“As part of that contract, we negotiated in a special feature where any other entity could piggyback off our contract to buy technology and if they did that, we get a little percent back,” Owen said. “This check represents that small little percentage coming back to us.”