Lack of funding hinders maintenance of university’s aging infrastructure

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Aging infrastructure throughout the University of Alaska is causing a $1 billion maintenance crunch, and campuses are trying to find ways to cope with a growing backlog of projects.

Michelle Rizk, the Vice President of University Relations, said the Board of Regents has been working for years to find ways to reduce the backlog of projects.

“As our buildings have been aging, you know the average age exceeds 30 years and we have over 400 facilities across the state of Alaska – as the buildings age, the need for emergency maintenance increases,” Rizk said. “So there’s roofs that are leaking and that need to be replaced, sewer systems, there’s a variety of issues out there.”

Traditionally, funding for deferred maintenance and projects to renew or re-purpose old buildings comes from the state legislature. If money is appropriated, it’s often a drop in the bucket compared to the actual need.

While former Governor Sean Parnell was in office, the university system received more than $37 million per year, for five years.

According to John Faunce, the director of planning and construction for the Anchorage campus, about $10 million per year went to UAA.

“Our deferred maintenance grows at a rate of about $14 million per year,” Faunce said. “So we’ve got a backlog already of $240-250 million, and we continue to grow at $14 million a year.”

That’s just at UAA.

No deferred maintenance funds were allocated by the state for this fiscal year, but the University was able to funnel about $10 million from its operating budget into deferred maintenance – about $2.5 million of that went to the Anchorage campus.

Chris Turletes, the Associate Vice Chancellor of Facilities and Campus Services at UAA, said that money helps, but it’s not enough.

“Kind of what we’ve been doing is keeping the roof from caving in and doing just-in-time work, systems that are broken or not operating efficiently, just keeping them running,” Turletes said. “And that’s what we’re doing a lot of. And eventually they break and you’ve got a problem.”

And those problems are not limited to UAA; the university system maintains buildings in Fairbanks, Juneau, and satellite campuses in many smaller communities across the state.

Michelle Rizk said the Board of Regents’ goal is to reduce the project backlog to a manageable level, but the exact path to doing so is not clear.

“Of course, one way to reduce the deferred maintenance of a building is actually to get rid of the building,” Rizk said. “And so we’re assessing is there some of our buildings over time should we sell them, should we lease them, to reduce our overall operating expense.”

And Rizk said the University will continue to seek funding from the state and other sources, but deferred maintenance can be a hard sell.

“A lot of people instead of fixing what you have, I mean, they wanna build a new facility, you know, so it’s hard to get donors and others excited about funding a roof replacement,” Rizk said.

In recent years, the university built the Alaska Airlines Center and a state-of-the-art engineering building on the Anchorage campus, and another engineering building on the Fairbanks campus remains partially complete.

The University of Alaska Board of Regents will address deferred maintenance and a variety of other capital and operating budget issues this week in Fairbanks.