State of disrepair on display
Bypassing all the usual stops, Kansas legislators saw beneath the beauty of KU's campus and toured maintenance hotspots: leaky and rusty labs and other high-tech equipment, an undulating floor, condemned fume hoods, water damage, eroding walkways and stairs, leaning and separating walls and the 106-year-old utility tunnels underneath campus. The Kansas Board of Regents hosted a working lunch and tour Nov. 2 for 20 legislators and candidates to discuss higher education funding and specifically deferred maintenance issues.
Important maintenance needs on the six state university campuses have been deferred because of a lack of state funding. The universities now face a daunting and increasingly dangerous maintenance backlog of $727 million — more than $285 million at KU campuses in Lawrence and Kansas City, Kan. — that has grown by $143 million since 2004 according to a Board of Regents report.
To prevent further backlog, $84 million per year is required, without factoring inflation, to adequately maintain the 20 million square feet of university campus buildings. Though the replacement value of these buildings is $3.9 billion, only $15 million was available in fiscal year 2006 for maintenance.
The six Kansas Board of Regents institution campuses account for two-thirds of all state-owned buildings. Many of the campus buildings are historic or aging. The average age of KU's buildings is 45 years. Twelve buildings are more than 100 years old and 46 are more than 50 years old. Nearly three-quarters of KU's buildings are more than 20 years old.
Maintenance is important not only for preserving state property and safety of occupants, but campus facilities play a major role in recruiting students to Kansas schools. A 2005 Association of Physical Plant Administrators survey of more than 16,000 college students found that three-quarters said facilities related to their major were extremely or very important in deciding where they would attend college.
