| An online magazine dedicated to sharing best practices and providing in-depth coverage of issues and trends affecting the Washington State community and technical college system. |
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| January 2006 Edition 6 |
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Creating Opportunities for the future: The value of protecting Washington’s long-term investments |
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Main Story |
If you’ve ever vacationed at one of the Disneyland theme parks, you’d probably agree that Walt Disney knew a thing or two about customer service. At any given time, the parks are immaculate, the rides freshly painted, and lively Disney characters abound to enrich the experience. It’s all part of the package – and the price you pay at the ticket booth before entering. So, what does Walt Disney have to do with an article about community and technical colleges, and the importance of maintenance and operations funding? A lot, if you also think about the two-year college system as a business which revolves around providing excellent customer service in the form of a first-class education. Students are the customers of the two-year college system, and they, as well as the taxpayers of Washington state, contribute to the “ticket price” of education. It’s an investment they expect to be used wisely. However, what is sometimes overlooked when discussing the cost of a quality educational experience are the things that go unnoticed to the untrained eye. That is, they go unnoticed when they are done right, such as landscaping, air conditioning, heating and clean bathrooms. These are all elements that make up a typical maintenance and operations budget on a college campus. “Most people don’t realize that construction only represents (about) eight percent of the total lifetime cost of a building,” explained SBCTC Capital Budget Director Tom Henderson. “The most significant costs come later, after the ribbon is cut and all the systems are running.” The elements of M&O: They’re not glamorous,
but Like it or not, first impressions do matter, at least to prospective students and parents. Whether a building is relatively new or many years old, peeling paint, strewn garbage and dirty carpets can say volumes about the learning environment. “The appearance of the campus is critical,” stated Greg Plummer, district director of facilities for the Community Colleges of Spokane. “We want our students to be comfortable and feel that we care about them. We also have faculty who have worked here for 30 years. …We want to ensure that this is a place that faculty and staff want to work.” As an operations manager, Plummer mainly focuses on the workers he needs to maintain a building, whether they be custodians, landscaping crews, skilled laborers or maintenance mechanics, and how in an environment of shrinking financial resources, it seems there are fewer people to go around. “As a system, we’ve worked very hard to push doing preventative maintenance over repair,” Plummer stated. “Unfortunately, most campuses are doing more ‘reactive’ maintenance and responding to problems. … It makes it difficult to keep up with what we should be doing, and that gets expensive in the long run.” Planning for longevity through quality infrastructure As someone who has served on the two-year college system’s task force that scores projects for budget recommendation, Lake Washington Technical College Director of Campus Services Jim Stevens understands what is at stake in the early phases of a new construction or renovation project. “We [the colleges] have a responsibility to put together documents that clearly pencil out what the fiscal requirements of the project will be over its lifetime,” he stated. “Our system’s process for reviewing and scoring proposals forces the colleges to think of all the costs up front…including maintenance and operations funding.” With many years of building maintenance experience behind him, Stevens also knows that a building doesn’t take care of itself. Community and technical colleges are gradually replacing or renovating buildings that were quickly constructed in the 1960s and ’70s to meet booming enrollment. Today, these buildings are in desperate need of updating, and are often expensive to maintain due to poor air circulation, insulation and wiring. “Building technology is perfecting over time,” stated Stevens. “We’re making smart decisions today so that our buildings will last into the future. We’re ensuring that our buildings are more user and more maintenance friendly. …The bottom line is , we don’t want to reinvent the wheel every 40 years.” The trade-offs of preservation and expansion According to Green River Community College President Rich Rutkowski, college officials have the responsibility to maintain their facilities at a high level of care, befitting the public trust. “We need to utilize our facilities to their full extent, as well as care for them to the best of our abilities…preserving their use for future students and the entire campus community,” Rutkowski explained. However, presidents and college administrators are placed in the precarious position of balancing program and facilities budgets when they plan campus renovations or expansions. Green River CC officials had to examine resources very carefully when they put together a financial feasibility determination for their Kent Campus, which is funded through a Certificate of Participation (COP). Proper maintenance and operations funding is just as important to this project as it has been for all other projects funded by state appropriation, stated Rutkowski. Projects funded with COPs represent a great partnership between the college and the state of Washington. The Legislature authorizes the sale of COPs through the state’s capital budget, and sale proceeds are used to construct college facilities without tying up state bond capacity. Colleges dedicate their own funds to pay off certificates, either through enterprise operations, (such as parking garages that charge a user fee, or student centers paid by students who assess themselves special fees) or out of a college’s operating budget. The COP project, once paid off, becomes state-owned property. “Students who attend our Kent Campus are the same students who might attend the GRCC main campus,” Rutkowski explained. “Those students pay the same tuition, take the same kinds of courses, and generally see no difference from one facility to the other.” This argument has become most important during the 2006 supplemental budget session as the governor’s office has recognized the importance of providing maintenance and operations funding for instruction related projects funded through COPs. Maintenance and operations funding for Green River Community College’s Kent Campus was included in Governor Gregoire’s 2006 supplemental capital budget proposal. Setting policy to make M&O more predictable The dilemma of maintenance and operations funding is not unique to higher education institutions. The Legislature is continually looking for a balance between finding money to expand programs that serve Washington residents and investing in the state’s building infrastructures for the long-term. “Building preservation has been a legislative priority over the past few years,” stated senior capital budget assistant to the governor, Mike Roberts. “However, in a time when we have unmet needs and can’t get to all of them, the question becomes, ‘Where should we spend our money?’” The governor’s answer to this dilemma at two-year colleges is to provide maintenance and operations money for facilities that provide direct services to students via instructional space. Her budget proposal states that maintenance and operations funding for COP projects will not be recommended for non-instructional buildings, specifically those buildings considered enterprise operations, such as parking garages and student centers, Roberts explained. “The community and technical colleges are providing the state a service [by financing projects through COPs],” stated Roberts. “We are trying to encourage colleges being entrepreneurial and taking care of their state-supported FTEs in times of restricted resources…but we also need to recognize that we can’t meet all the needs.” Protecting the state’s investment No matter the perspective – governor, legislator, taxpayer, student or college administrator – the cost of inadequately funding maintenance and operations is like a mortgage on the future that someday will come due. “Without it, a college would have to reduce its care of a facility to the barest minimum,” explained Green River’s Rutkowski. “Beyond that, a college might even have to reduce the programs and services it offers to students.” Public institutions, in partnership with the state, have a responsibility to protect their long-term investments and adequately prepare for future needs. Each has the responsibility to strike the right balance between operating budgets and program cost, a process riddled with difficult trade offs. “In the end, it’s all about balancing the budget and serving the customer - the student,” the State Board’s Henderson said. | |