Roofs, electrical systems and air and heat conditioning units at ASU are nearing the end of their lifespan, but the Arizona Legislature has not budgeted money to the University to cover these repairs, also known as deferred maintenance.
Lorenzo Martinez, assistant vice president for finance and administration with the Arizona Board of Regents, said deferred maintenance is a problem all buildings encounter as they age, but without the money to cover these repairs they continue to collect and grow into larger needs.
"As long as you have a mature building system, you always have deferred maintenance issues," Martinez said. "To the extent that you don't keep up with major repairs, it can accumulate over time. It is always there, it's just the magnitude."
As of June 2012, ASU has a deferred maintenance of $243,693,016, according to ASU's 2014-16 Capital Improvement Plan.
The facility condition index, which is the ratio of deferred maintenance and value of the buildings, is 0.09, according to the plan. A ratio of less than 0.05 is considered good. A ratio of 0.10 is rated as poor.
The Arizona public universities have typically relied on the state to provide funds to cover the costs of maintaining buildings, Martinez said.
However, when the recession hit, the Legislature decided to cut a lot of funds to cover maintenance of state buildings, such as the universities' classrooms.
"Capital is always one of the easier things to put on the back burner," Martinez said. "Our system never really recovered."
In 1987, the Legislature created a formula that used age and value of each building to calculate how much money the public universities would need to cover the cost of maintenance, Martinez said.
In the 26 years this formula has been used to determine how much money should be allocated for maintenance of the University, only once has all the money been paid out. That was in 1990, according to a report put out by the Arizona Board of Regents.
The Legislature's budget has not allocated any money to cover the costs of maintenance since 2002, except for in 2007 when a small portion of the funds were paid, according to the report.
David Brixen, associate vice president of Facilities Development and Management at ASU, said the current trend of putting off repairs for lack of funding is not the greatest choice because the problems get worse and costs accumulate.
"I think (deferred maintenance) needs to be addressed," Brixen said. "This is not an unusual problem that universities face. Other universities face this, but it is not sustainable over the long-term."
Brixen said the areas and systems that need to be taken care of in several buildings are the heating and air conditioning units, electrical units and roofs.
"(Facilities Management) fixes those as much as they can, but at some point you need to replace the unit or the system," Brixen said. "We don't have the resources to replace those units on a regularly planned basis. "
When systems or units reach a point when they have to be replaced, usually Facilities Management will approach senior administration and ask for funds to cover the replacement, Brixen said
ABOR and the three Arizona public universities are beginning talks on how to handle the deferred maintenance each university has accumulated.
They will be looking at how other universities deal with their situations and looking at possible solutions. Some ideas that may be brought up are increased tuition and bonds, Brixen said.
"One option is allocating student tuition revenue or generating additional student revenue. Other options are doing a bond funding," Brixen said. "There are just a number of options that are going to be kicked around."
It is still too early in the process to say for sure what the solution is going to be or what ideas are going to be brought to the table, Brixen said.
Computer science junior Brian Locksa said he has not seen problems in his classrooms. He said he does not see an issue with deferred maintenance and repairs.
Early childhood education junior Melissa Ludlow said repairing the buildings should be a priority at the University because of a classroom's ability to enhance learning.
"I think it is important to keep the buildings updated," Ludlow said. "It helps to keep the classroom in a nice order, and you don't have to worry about the ceilings cracking and falling down on you."
Reach the reporter at sgslade@asu.edu of follow her on Twitter @shelbygslade
