Everybody knew the tab for needed repairs at the state’s six public universities now was higher than the 2004 estimate of $584 million. This week, the Kansas Board of Regents reviewed an updated list of deferred maintenance needs totaling $727 million, including $44.1 million at Wichita State University. And the $15 million that campuses get each year for regular maintenance doesn’t even approach the needed $84 million. To their credit, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and many lawmakers have stated their resolve to tackle the problem in the session that begins in January, the first since the K-12 funding lawsuit ended. But as regent Donna Shank told the Lawrence Journal-World, “It’s going to take a long-term solution, and it’s going to take additional revenue. And to find that kind of revenue is not going to be easy.”
The issue is complicated by the fact that many of the 567 academic and administrative buildings were built through charitable gifts, without enough thought as to how they will be maintained in the future. But as Wichita State University president Donald Beggs (in photo) recently told The Eagle editorial board: “We’re taxpayers and those are state buildings.” The longer the state takes to deal with its responsibility, the higher the repair bill will go.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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15 Comments
Universities have surely heard of planning.
Most large universities and colleges have facility managers which as part of their job description keep an eye on architectual design, engineering lapses and the like.
If the university doesn’t have a long term plan in keeping buildings in shape, modified for longer life or plans to improve or replace, then I would say the fault is the universities and no one elses.
Universities and Colleges need to practice what they preach/teach on planning for the future if they wish to endure.
This long term goal planning may involve seeking state or private funds. It may also involve seeking federal grants or business grants through contracts that can be used to generate funds to the building fund.
Those who wait on others to do the work, will still be waiting when it’s past time to improve their campus architecture.
JM, there are facilities planning departments at colleges and universities, and they do long term planning. One issue for public universities is that the facilities are generally owned by the State, and the burden is upon the State to pay for maintenance, etc.
Funding for maintenance is part and parcel of the budgets, and budget requests made to the Legislature. If budget requests are not fully funded, then it becomes the job of the schools to determine cuts, etc. to be made. Deferring maintenance is a common “cut”.
I suspect, but do not know for sure, that attempts have been made and are being made to raise private funds for building maintenance. I also suspect that these attempts have, for the most part, failed, and will continue to fail. To me, the reason is obvious; building maintenance is not a high profile expenditure, and most donors want their names associated with things that are “sexy”.
An exception to the above involves athletic facilities. As an example, I offer the “Kivisto Field” at Memorial Stadium at the University of Kansas. The Kivisto family gave a large chunk of money for the purpose of replacing the artificial turf on the football field, and maintaining the same in the future. In return, the field was named for them.
How many potential donors would be interested in the “XYZ Corporation Roof” on Snow Hall? The “Smith family paint job” for the interior of Fraser Hall? These examples are purposefully trite, but are to make the point that private funding for routine maintenance is not a realistic probability. It is the responsibility of the State to fund these items.
I’m surprised you didn’t include an obvious source of funding to raise additional money; increases in student tuition.
I think it’s a matter of people who are interested in supporting an institution making contributions to actualize their hopes. KU’s private foundation has more than a half-billion-dollar endowment. That’s easily enough to pay for building maintenance.
How about recruiting 200 engineering students a year, training them in construction maintenance, and having them do volunteer work?They’re young and able-bodied. It’s their university. I bet KSU students would go for this, if given the opportunity.
I personally find it bizarre that Wichita, Kansas’s largest city, a city and county that spend tens of millions annually in government-funds on construction projects, doesn’t even have a civil engineering division at WSU’s school of engineering. In my opinion, this deficiency is a red-flag “backwardness” indicator.
heart, according to my Alumni mag, the KU endowment is >$1 Billion.
What must be remembered about endowment funds is that often they are “earmarked”, and given for specific purposes. Thus I doubt the University could use any meaningful portion thereof as you suggest.
And I agree with your comment on WSU’s School of Engineering.
So now the college people want State (WELFARE) assistance.
Vaughn, thanks for the updated figure.
You education-hating conservatives just don’t get it, do you?My father worked at K-State as an electrician for 40 years. My childhood memories are filled with trips into the tunnels beneath the campus, and the “Frankenstein Room” in the physical plant.Both of those were built in the 1880s AND ARE STILL IN USE.Moron Melvin Neufeld, who the MSM says “has a way with figures”, believes the facilities are “every bit as modern as similar universities across the country.And this freaking idiot could be Speaker of the House next year…with Brenda Landwehr as Majority Leader.If this happens, it should be interpreted as nothing less than an upraised middle finger by Republicans to anyone who has ever attended a Regents’ institution.
mrc, I think “moron” is too kind.
Some people have major misunderstandings about higher education. One is viewing it as solely benefitting its recipients. Actually, it benefits the societies that provide it to their people.
Another misunderstanding is viewing higher education’s funding as an overhead cost. It’s actually a strategic capital investment.
heartlander,
I agree. WSU should ask for donated supplies openly and students get engineering credit for working on the buildings. They don’t have to be engineering specified students either.
Waiting too long because the landlord is absent, wrong thing to do for so many years.
WSU has less chances at revenue like KU and KSU.
It has to increase number of students in future years by fixing buildings on campus and increasing dorm or apartment spaces for more students.
Today’s student fees shouldn’t go up at all.
An idea might be to allow some sort of placard – “Roof by ‘Magic Roofs’”
Heartlander says, “How about recruiting 200 engineering students and training them in construction maintenance and having them do volunteer work. I bet KSU students would go for this …”
Yes, Heartlander, why not recruit 200 law and medical students, train them in feed/care of homeless people, and ask them to volunteer six months walking up and down alleys and under the bridges working with the homeless? I doubt if you would get any takers.
As a KSU engineering student some years ago, I remember doing responsible semi-professional work on engineering and construction projects during summers to pay for the next school years education.
Actually the maintenance work at Kansas colleges and universities needs to be bid and performed immediately at prevailing wages. I don’t think Kansas is short of labor who can perform this work. Its virtually criminal to let this deterioration of taxpayer owned buildings continue.
And I will point out the figure of $44.1 million needed for deferred maintenance of WSU buildings and infrastructure is a drop in the bucket compared to the $250,000,000.98 plus delicious snacks for the pro-arena cheerleaders to be wasted on the unwanted, unneeded white elephant downtown ice hockey arena.
Unfortunately we have no hometown leadership in Wichita worthy of the name to demand that expenditures be prioritized in Sedgwick County.
In regard to WSU having a civil engineering degree, any added degrees has to be passed by the board of regents. If KU and KSU have civil engineering good luck in getting it at WSU.
KSU has offered civil engineering degrees for many years, one of the best in the nation. And as far as I know KU still offers civil engineering education and degrees.
Civil engineering education emphacises structural design of steel and concrete structures so civil engineers have long been recruited for the aeronautical industry here in Wichita and elsewhere.
In Wichita, at WSU, civil engineering degrees haven’t been offered but it’s my understanding that degrees in aeronautical engineering, of course emphacizing structural design, and industrial engineering are offered.
Perhaps someone who is more up to date on this subject can comment. But I don’t think replicating a civil engineering education at Wichita’s WSU is needed.