PLANT DIRECTOR HAS STATEWIDE PERSPECTIVE

Although he was hired in mid-March, William H. Moon is just now finding time to focus all of his attention on his job as physical plant director at Southeast Missouri State University.

That's because for nearly two months now he has had to divide his time between his new job at Southeast and his old duties as executive director of the Joint Committee on Capital Improvements for the Missouri General Assembly.

Moon, 53, said he made numerous trips to Jefferson City this spring to assist the legislature in drawing up the state's capital improvements budget.

"I have been going back and forth to finish some of the things I was doing up there for the legislature," said Moon.

In his role in state government, Moon helped draw up the list of capital improvement priorities. "State budget requests would come into the legislature and I would sit down and build a package of high priority items and the funding that was available," he said.

In his job, Moon worked with both the House and Senate budget committees, and conducted field audits to determine if projects were meeting design and cost requirements, as well as legislative intent.

With the appropriation measures having now been passed, Moon said Thursday that his state government duties have now ended and he can devote full attention to his job at Southeast.

Moon was a familiar face in Jefferson City. From 1971 to 1979, he directed the Missouri Division of Design and Construction. Since 1985, he had served as executive director of the capital improvements committee.

In all, Moon has more than 30 years of experience in facilities design, construction and management in the public and private sector. A former project engineer for the Illinois highway department, Moon has also owned a construction management company.

After years of working in state government in Jefferson City, Moon said he was ready for a change.

"Part of my wanting to change was just the fact I had been up there all these years," he explained. He described the situation in Jefferson City as a constant "pressure cooker."

Moon said he often put in long hours during the legislative sessions. "There were a lot of times I put in 18 hours a day," he recalled.

"We generally went right down to the wire," he said of the capital improvements budget process.

Moon said he takes his new job seriously. "I didn't come to Southeast to retire."

As physical plant director, Moon said he'll be involved more directly with capital improvement projects, seeing them through from start to finish on the Southeast campus.

"It was just an extension of my profession," he said of his new job. "I went from the total fiscal budgeting end of it back into the performance end."

Moon said he was attracted to both the university and the area. "Basically, I like the town. I like the area. I like the school."

Moon acknowledged that his first-hand experience in the capital improvements budget process of state government could help Southeast in securing future funding for projects.

He said that there are some "common denominators" in facilities management. "What works in the Department of Corrections in facilities management will work here," he pointed out.

State funding problems have forced state agencies and institutions, including Southeast, to defer maintenance of facilities and equipment, he said.

"Our deferred maintenance may approach $8 million," said Moon. Statewide, he said, deferred maintenance items total about $500 million.

From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, there was a building boom on university campuses in Missouri, as institutions expanded their classroom space.

"That was all done at the expense of the infrastructure," said Moon, noting that as new buildings were built, the maintenance needs also grew.

Growth and ever-increasing regulatory pressures have put a strain on the state budget, he said.

Moon said new procedures are being set up at Southeast to better plan and manage capital improvement and maintenance projects.

"You can't afford to have three No. 1 priorities. You have to have one No. 1 priority," he said.

In this era of tight funding, Moon said the university must have tighter fiscal controls in the physical plant area. "We have to be more accountable for what we do because when you are more accountable, you are more careful" in how the money is spent.

Moon said one of his priorities is development of a long-range facilities plan for the university. Long-range planning, he said, could enhance Southeast's chances for state funding of various projects.

Moon said an effort is being made to reduce administrative paperwork on capital projects at Southeast. "We have set in motion a method of handling capital improvement projects that will probably cut our paperwork by 50 percent."

He predicted that within four or five years, much of the documentation required for capital projects could be handled via computer links between the state capitol and Southeast.

Moon said he expects the university will be dealing more with environmental and handicapped-accessibility issues in coming years as a result of increasing government regulations.

"When we are running our own power plant, pollution control becomes a very costly item."

Moon said his office is looking at conducting some studies to determine if the university's power plant should be used to generate more electricity, less or none at all.

The university's aging power plant generates electricity during peak load periods, but most of the electrical power for the campus is provided by Union Electric.

Southeast currently pays about $1.9 million a year to Union Electric and the city for utility services, Moon said.