University of Wisconsin officials have been approved to pay up to $100,000 to investigate allegations of misconduct by John Chadima, former senior associate athletic director.

UW spokesperson Amy Toburen said in an email to The Badger Herald that the university has the authority to pay up to $100,000 for the entire investigation. UW began the investigation after allegations that Chadima had sexually assaulted a male student employee surfaced shortly after the Badgers’ trip to the Rose Bowl in December 2011. Two additional allegations against Chadima have since come forward.

Former Dane County Circuit Court Judge Patrick Fiedler, who is chairing the investigations connected with Chadima, charges $300 an hour.

Toburen added officials do not know how many hours the investigation will take and the $100,000 allotted does not necessarily mean UW will pay the full amount.

Mike Hardiman, UW’s director of purchasing services, said the UW Business Services Department became involved to form a contract with Fiedler to chair the independent investigation.

“At that point in time, we had no idea what the allegations were … so we were pretty much doing this contract a little bit blind,” Hardiman said. “We will spend nowhere near that amount of money.”

The $100,000 was allotted to secure approval of Fiedler’s hiring from Gov. Scott Walker’s office and to ensure there would be no competition in paying for the investigation.

Hardiman added Fiedler worked at most 50 hours on the first investigation, which brings the cost to about $15,000. However, with Fiedler’s two additional investigations, Hardiman said he could not estimate how much the investigations would cost in total.

Hardiman also said the contract is a typical attorney retainer contract, which gives a vague description of Fiedler’s work to complete during the investigation.

“[Fiedler] is probably doing this just out of the goodness of his heart, to be honest,” Hardiman said of the $300/hour rate. “It’s very reasonable, especially for a person with the stature of Fiedler.”

Currently, Fiedler is leading a second investigation into allegations of misconduct from two more adult males against Chadima.