In light of USM president Selma Botman’s November 24th announcement that an additional $2.7 million will be cut from an already anemic University budget, the Department of Facilities Management may have trouble funding critical repairs.
According to a Facilities Management breakdown of estimated deferred maintenance, USM’s backlog of maintenance and upgrade costs totals $60,587,000 for all three campuses.
However, Facilities Management’s interim executive director David Barbour maintains that this estimate only includes construction costs in the primary classroom and administrative buildings.
“It’s actually about a hundred million,” he said last Friday afternoon. “There’s another half on top of that in what we call ‘soft costs.'”
These “soft costs” include additional engineering and architectural services and permits for modifications and upgrades to existing classrooms and buildings.
USM aims to model all of its classrooms after technologically integrated rooms like 209 Luther Bonney Hall, according to Dan Warren, maintenance supervisor for the Portland campus.
“Ultimately, the university would like to have all of their classrooms look identical to that. It’s a very high tech classroom.”
But with revenue decreasing across the board for USM, upgrades seem to be out of the picture for the foreseeable future, as Facilities Management struggles with a shrinking budget to keep essential utilities operational.
“The administration is funding substantial amounts of money for deferred maintenance,” says Warren. “[The goal is] hopefully to continue that process in the future. How the state shortfall and most recent round of budget cuts are going to affect that, I don’t know.”
According to Barbour, the department currently has $250,000 budgeted for the year to address the school’s “critical maintenance capital list.” The list includes 20 or so essential repairs, with a total estimated cost of $1.3 million.
The current budget for deferred maintenance allows for the replacement of an electrical transformer for the transformer vault in the basement of Luther Bonney Hall, and upgrades to the heating plant in Gorham. Barbour says that both of these upgrades are critical to keeping the University online.
“We’re going to be replacing some expansion tanks at our heating plant in Gorham. If those failed, and they’re getting close to that now, we’d lose the whole campus,” he says.
Barbour commended the recent work of Chief Financial Officer Dick Campbell in allocating the funds needed for these important repairs, but says that future funding of USM’s critical repairs list is still uncertain.
“We’re a little unsure as to what’s going to happen in the next fiscal year and the following one. We thought we had funding for the next 3 years, but now that’s going to have to be scooped probably, and go towards the deficit we are going to have to make up.”
In the meantime, Facilities Management remains understaffed in an anxious University environment bracing for an additonal estimated 65 job cuts.
“[CFO Dick Campbell] is trying to not impact our department anymore than he has to. We are pretty much below minimum staffing levels as it is, particularly now with the additions of [the Wishcamper Center and Osher Map Library],” says Barbour.
The University of Maine System is banking on a $60 million bond request through the State Legislature to cover needed repairs to all 7 campuses. The bond request was approved at the November 18th meeting of the University of Maine System board of trustees.
The fact that this bond request is aimed almost entirely at building maintenance makes it unusual.
“We typically brought bond requests in the past for new construction,” says Campbell.
Projects like the Wishcamper Center, the Osher Map Library and the John Mitchell Center were all funded to some extent through State of Maine bonds.
The temptation to construct new buildings at the cost of keeping up on necessary repairs is endemic of capital management on the national level, according to Campbell.
“The idea that we don’t maintain what we build has been a problem everywhere,” he says.
If passed, the proposed bond would address $8.2 million in costs for deferred maintenance and energy efficiency upgrades to Bailey Hall in Gorham, and Luther Bonney Hall and the Law School Building in Portland.
Still, with an overstretched local and national economy, Barbour is doubtful that the University of Maine will get the full amount requested.
“I’m not expecting to see 60 million dollars. If we can get some money out of it, we will be very happy.”