Bill unlikely to speed system building repairs

Despite a bill in the N.C. General Assembly that would give the UNC system more money for repairs schools are unlikely to actually be able to make needed renovations.

The bill introduced last week by Sen. David Hoyle D-Gaston would change the existing formula by increasing funding for the upkeep of the UNC system's buildings which make up a large part of the total number of state-owned buildings.

The N.C. General Assembly currently allocates around 46 percent of its total Repair and Renovations fund to the UNC system. The bill proposed by Hoyle would increase the UNC system's slice to 50 percent of the General Assembly's total allotment.

When the formula was created the UNC system accounted for 46 percent of the state's buildings. But in the past few years a statewide construction boom has caused that number to increase while funding has remained the same.

But UNC might not actually see any benefit from that increase anytime soon.

Last year" the UNC system received $6.5 million for repairs and renovations. It received $13.6 million in 2006 and $21.8 million in 2007.

But last year's funds were returned to the General Assembly because of the state's deficit. Runberg said he had low expectations for being able to spend this year's allotment despite Hoyle's proposal.

""When you have as critically adverse a financial situation as we have today" it makes it very difficult to justify big allocations for construction projects" said Bruce Runberg, UNC-Chapel Hill vice chancellor of facilities planning and construction.

Despite the lack of funding, the University must continue to keep up its facilities, increasing an already huge maintenance backlog of about $500 million.

We have to maintain our university and campus buildings so it doesn't impact the people who use them"" he said.

UNC-CH often receives a substantial portion of the system's allocation of the money because it has many old buildings that need repair, said Abbas Piran of Engineering and Information Services.

The state legislature allocates the repairs and renovations money to the UNC system, where it is then distributed to its 17 campuses based on the size of the campus, the number of students and the importance of the projects requiring funding.

Projects for repair and renovations funding at UNC would include bringing buildings such as Wilson Library and Davis Library up to current building code requirements, repairing old roofs and updating electrical infrastructure.

Not receiving the funding can cause problems down the road" and could cause us to use emergency funding to make up for it Piran said. When you have a roof that can cause additional damage to the building" that needs to be addressed.""



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