PROJECT IN SEARCH OF MONEY; BUSINESS BUILDING LACKS AN ALLOCATION

Southeast Missouri State University's planned College of Business Administration building is a project in search of state construction money.

At this point no construction money has been allocated for the project, and university officials will have to wait until next year at the earliest for the approximately $13 million in state funding needed to erect the building.

Gov. John Ashcroft last week vetoed a $100,000 appropriation for continued planning work for the business building. It was the second consecutive year that the governor vetoed such an appropriation for the project.

Art Wallhausen, assistant to the president at Southeast, said Tuesday that the governor's veto will have little impact on the planning work, which is all but completed.

"The bottom line is, this isn't going to hold up the design of the building; it is almost all done except for the final working plans," he said.

The real delay, said Wallhausen, is that no construction money for the project was included in the state's $10.4 billion 1993 fiscal year budget.

"We requested construction money this year, and when that was not recommended (by the governor) a decision was made to ask the legislature for the planning money," explained Wallhausen.

"The planning money request was essentially a fallback position to reinforce the state's commitment to building the building," he said.

Wallhausen said the governor's top priority was funding for repair and maintenance of buildings and not funding for new construction.

"You can't really fault the governor for putting maintenance of the existing facilities first when we have had such a dearth of dollars over the last five or six years for maintaining our buildings," said Wallhausen.

Had the state provided the $13 million requested, construction could have commenced this year, Wallhausen said.

The lack of such funding has essentially delayed the project for at least a year, he said, depending on what happens with next year's budget.

Wallhausen said the project is near the top of the state's construction priorities. But at this point, he said, there's little funding available for such projects.

Still, he said, university officials are optimistic about eventual funding for the project. "We are fairly optimistic that at some point in the fairly near future the project will get off the ground."

The university will be seeking construction funding in its budget request for the 1994 fiscal year, Wallhausen said. He said the construction funding would include money to complete the working drawings.

Two years ago Southeast received $100,000 in state money for planning work on the project. But additional planning money was vetoed by Ashcroft last year. The Southeast Missouri University Foundation stepped in to provide the added funding for planning work so the project would not be delayed.

With the planning by Sverdrup Corp. of St. Louis nearly completed, Wallhausen said he doesn't expect the university foundation will be asked to contribute any additional planning money at this time.

In all, private donations through the foundation are expected to pay for about $2.4 million of the total project cost.

Plans call for construction of the 100,000-square-foot building on the northwest part of the campus near the Henderson and New Madrid intersection. The Board of Regents last October approved the conceptual design of the three-story building and entered into the second phase of planning for the project.