DEFERRED: MAINTENANCE COSTS GET A BACK SEAT

THE FUNDING DILEMMA IN HIGHER EDUCATION

In the debate over funding needs for higher education, the enormous cost for maintaining and building university facilities sometimes is overlooked.

University capital-improvements and maintenance budgets are routinely slashed to allow more money to be allocated to high-profile education and administrative programs. But university officials nationwide are sounding the alarm over soaring deferred maintenance costs; and while college enrollments continue to rise along with a need for expanded services to students, maintenance and capital-improvements needs continue to be overlooked, educators say.

To replace Missouri campus facilities today, colleges and universities would have to spend more than $2 billion. Nationwide, the tab is about $300 billion.

Although there is no commonly accepted method for determining the replacement value of buildings, one approach is to take the term "replacement" literally: What would it take to reconstruct each square foot of existing facility space?

At Southeast Missouri State University, the average reconstruction cost of facilities is about $88 per square foot, or a total replacement cost of $108 million for educational and general facilities.

The Association of Physical Plant Administrators (APPA), a national group that has studied deferred maintenance extensively, recommends annual capital renewal funding at 1.5 to 3 percent of the total replacement value. In Southeast's case, that is $1.6 million to $3.2 million.

The university asked for $3.6 million for maintenance needs in its 1992 budget request. But Gov. John Ashcroft has recommended only $86,000 in capital appropriations for Southeast. Statewide, Ashcroft has scaled down capital renewal appropriations for all the state's universities and colleges.

Vince Seyer, Southeast's physical plant manager, said that although the APPA's recommendation is "very liberal," Southeast appropriations generally have fallen well below even half of the recommended maintenance budget.

"At 1 percent (of total replacement costs), just to keep it at status quo we ought to be spending at least $1.5 million to keep things going," Seyer said. "And with the governor's appropriation for next year at $86,000, we're not even touching the surface here."

Seyer said Southeast has received substantial capital funding some years compared with other universities but most of the crucial maintenance needs are just now beginning to surface.

"There was so much expansion in the late '50s and early '60s, and now you're talking about a nearly 30-year timeframe on much of the equipment," he said. "You get more life than 30 years out of some things, but certain things, that's really about the limit."

Like Southeast, many universities and colleges across the nation with the help of the federal government, state governments and private donors were able to invest heavily in educational facilities that, at the time, were relatively new.

Now, almost two-thirds of the nation's higher-education facilities are at least 20 years old; one-third are at least 30 years old; and one-sixth of all college and university space is at least 40 years old, says the APPA.

Total facilities replacement costs for Missouri's public colleges and universities exceed $2 billion, and, given the APPA recommendation, $30 million to $60 million should be appropriated annually for maintenance and capital improvements.

But, since 1983, the average annual maintenance and repair appropriation has been only about $12 million.

Southeast received substantial appropriations several years during the 1980s for construction of the Show Me Center (1986-87), a new boiler (1988-89), an addition to Crisp Hall of Nursing (1987-88), and remodeling of the Bootheel Education Center in Malden (1989-90).

But Seyer said all the major projects, with the exception of the boiler, were new construction projects and didn't dent the deferred maintenance backlog.

Now the university is faced with costly handicapped accessibility projects that also will reduce its chances for deferred maintenance funding.

"The handicapped accessibility work adds to our woes because it's not deferred maintenance," Seyer said. "While it's wonderful to get all these new, additional facilities, that's appropriations that aren't going to address our deferred maintenance needs."

Seyer also said maintenance costs for the new facilities could "catch up" with the university in the next few years if more maintenance and repair funds aren't allocated.

"We can go a few years on a new facility without very high maintenance costs, but that's not always so," he said. "Sometimes a new building within two, three, four years needs some major work."

Seyer said most of Southeast's buildings are in good condition, which makes it difficult for people to perceive the seriousness of the deferred maintenance problem.

"My really big concern with deferred maintenance is not what you see," he said. "My concern is what is not seen: the mechanical things that are behind closed doors, that are crucial.

"We have things right now, cooling towers and air conditioners, that are bad, that we've been patching for two or three years on some of these major buildings."

Seyer said the north campus air-conditioning system was installed more than 30 years ago and needs expensive maintenance or replacement. He also said the electrical distribution system is a "major problem."

"We need a new one so we basically would have to start over," Seyer said. "This one started being assembled on a piece-meal basis in 1949."

Seyer said that if the university is forced to wait until major air-conditioning and electrical systems break down completely, it could mean long delays before they're replaced.

He said deferred maintenance for campus facilities is like owning a timeworn automobile that spends more time at the repair shop than on the road. "You know that you have to replace that automobile at a time when the cost of maintenance to keep it operating becomes excessive," he said. "It's like that with deferred maintenance.

"It's getting to the point where miracles cannot be performed."

Two proposals now being considered in the state legislature would allocate an additional $40 million to $50 million annually for deferred maintenance. Southeast could receive an estimated $1.6 million to $2.6 million for equipment and maintenance under a Senate proposal.

Seyer said such a proposal would help whittle away the backlog of deferred maintenance at Southeast.

Eldon Wallace of the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education said that short of a tax increase, the only thing Missouri colleges and universities can do is improve their preventive maintenance.

"But short of big money, I don't know any shortcuts," he said.

Wallace said most Missouri institutions have had to earmark a percentage of student fees for critical building-maintenance projects to compensate for funding shortfalls.

He said the governor's recommendation of $1.6 million for all Missouri public institutions' maintenance won't begin to address the needs.

Wallace cited a Northwest Missouri State University official who put the state's deferred-maintenance woes in perspective: "`If the replacement value was represented by a $100,000 house, the amount being recommended (by Ashcroft) is about $250. At that rate, it would take about 10 years just to replace the roof.'"