Lack of funds puts IU repairs on hold

A lack of state appropriations -- $77 million over the last four years -- has forced IU to halt a number of building upgrades and repair projects.\nTom Swafford, director of Space Management, said he has a drawer full of repair and restoration requests that all need to be done, but the University doesn't have the funding.\n"My understanding is there are a number of roofs that need to be replaced and we don't have the funding to do that," he said. "We are doing what we have to do to get by."\nLack of state appropriations for a fund called "repair and rehabilitation" has forced the IU Physical Plant to perform only emergency repairs on IU-Bloomington campus buildings, such as patching leaky roofs instead of replacing them. \nFrom 2001 to 2005, IU received $2.7 million dollars for R&R, which allows the Physical Plant to provide maintenance and upgrades to the buildings on the IUB campus. That funding is $77.2 million short of what the University would have normally received for that period. \nWhen the state approved its 2005-07 budget, up to about $20 million was marked for R&R purposes, but it is not certain how much the University will receive until the end of the budget period in 2007. \nIU Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer Terry Clapacs said ideally IU would receive all $20 million. But because Indiana's state economy has been lackluster for the past few years, he is doubtful the University will receive all the money it needs to do all the repairs it wants.\n"We can internally try to reallocate funds and try to do work, but most of our funds are already committed to other areas," Clapacs said. "Normally we would have a routine program, and it's on hold. If there is a problem that could cause a safety issue for our faculty, staff and students, we address that issue."\nThe reason IU stopped receiving money from the state for this specific purpose is because of the condition the Indiana economy is in right now, said J. Thomas Forbes, IU's executive director for government relations. \n"A bad economy means limited funding for public institutions, when the economy went bad quickly the administration had to find ways to cut spending," he said. "It's a pragmatic administrative call, a tough call. There's nothing to be read in to it other than no money, no R&R."\nPurdue University has addressed repair funding problems by instituting a $250-per-year fee per full-time student for freshmen starting in the fall of 2006, said Cindy McAdams, assistant director of Budget and Fiscal Planning for Purdue. \nPurdue budget officials expect the fee to raise $7.3 million each year. The fee is not necessarily permanent, but will be charged to students "as long as it is necessary," she said.\nTo receive R&R funding, IU must submit a claim to the General Assembly's budget committee. The committee reviews the claim and, if approved, IU completes the project and gets reimbursed by the state at a later time. State Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Bloomington, a member of the state budget committee which approves R&R money for public universities, said the economy is partially at fault for this situation. \n"It's also partially a matter of priority," she said. "There is a $21 billion (state) budget, and so if higher education was a higher priority for some of my colleagues, then they would be willing to invest more in higher education. We all choose to put more money into the General Operating Budget of the Universities rather than into repairing buildings."\nIU Trustee President Steve Ferguson said the board is aware of the problem and they are aware of the way Purdue is attempting to solve it. \n"This is a major problem from several respects," Ferguson said. "A lot of our science labs, we've used R&R money to renovate the labs. Secondly, we have a lot of major structures that need to be maintained, air conditioned rooms to other immediate needs. What the board wants to address is the funding for those and what sort of funds we can find to do that."\nFunds can be reallocated from other departments in the University where IU is saving money. For example, upgrades have IU's energy production more efficient and has freed up extra money that can be put toward R&R, said Physical Plant Director Hank Hewetson. \n"We are not in a panic mode as of yet," Heweston said. "We are moving from a strategy where we are spending money to avoid failures by doing renovations and renewal to where we will be spending money to address failures. We are moving from being proactive to reactive, that's unsettling." \nAccording to claims submitted to the state, IU's most expensive R&R request was almost $410,000 for an interior renovation of the Main Library. The most common need for money from the R&R fund was remodels for various classrooms in IUB campus buildings. \nSo far IU has submitted claims for R&R funding totaling more than $9.5 million.\nForbes said the University is hoping the state budget committee will act on these claims by the end of next month. Repeated phone calls to Gov. Mitch Daniels' press office for more than a week were not returned by press time.