Proposed budget would cut IU funds

Indiana’s House of Representatives’ proposed budget could now cause even more funding to be cut from Indiana colleges.

In total, $50 million budgeted to help with general maintenance, rehabilitation and repair of aging buildings would not be given, forcing schools to find new sources of money for building maintenance.

IU-Bloomington would be the greatest hit with about $15 million per year being spent for repair funds, said Tom Morrison, vice president for capital projects and facilities for IU.

“It is a significant amount of money and to zero it out is something we hope that doesn’t happen because we’re always trying to maintain the assets so it doesn’t affect the learning environment,” he said.

Renovation and rehabilitation funds would be cut, and Morrison said regardless of state funding, these projects still need to be fixed.

“When we have something in a building that fails, big things and not little things, like roofs and windows and things like that, this is the pot of money that is used to renovate those facilities,” he said. “Most of the R and R expenses are things that students don’t see. They are things that happen above ceilings, below streets and below sidewalks, and it is all stuff that is infrastructure that is behind the scenes.”

IU-Bloomington has the greatest percentage of funds for repairs of all the state universities because it has the oldest buildings, Morrison said.

“The monies are appropriated by a complicated formula, and the formula is figured out by a combination of the age of the building and how long those things should last and how much they cost to replace them,” he said.

If the funds are cut, IU will have to prioritize what projects to repair now and what projects can be delayed because they aren’t emergencies, Morrison said.

“What you are trying to do is fix the roof now before it ruins a classroom or a laboratory or something else or creates greater damage,” he said. “Those are the risks we take if it is not funded. We would have to prioritize and take those risks and hope it doesn’t cost us more down the road.”

Morrison said it is IU’s goal to not have students bear more of the cost.

“It is always our goal to minimize that effect,” he said.

The budget is supposed to be finished in April, and Morrison said he is optimistic of the end result.

“We are in the middle of the process and there is a long way to go and the state normally has been very supportive of R and R and has prioritized R and R spending so that it would assist the student learning environment,” he said. “I think in the end we are positive that would happen again.”