Page 30 - College Planning & Management, May 2018

DEALING WITH THE DEFERRED MAINTENANCE CHALLENGE
Taking a life-cycle-focused approach to planning and prioritizing deferred maintenance needs, including those for equipment, can have a tremendous impact, according to Spencer Morgenthau, director of business development for Southland Energy.
“By implementing improvements that drive down operating, energy, and maintenance costs first, universities can reallocate dollars wasted on inefficient equipment and reallocate these dol- lars for future capital maintenance needs,” he says.
Morgenthau adds that another approach is to bundle capital maintenance needs with fast-payback energy measures to create an impactful project that will offset all costs with savings. ”Much like an energy performance contract, this approach encourages decision makers to reinvest savings back into the deferred mainte- nance challenge,” he says.
Looking Forward
At Lycoming College in Williamsport, PA, the use of endowed funds has helped address maintenance needs over three decades. In 1990, the college and its trustees established a plant fund in the school’s endowment to have permanent resources for deferred maintenance on campus.
“Through this fund, the college is able to maintain and
DEFERRED MAINTENANCE: DO STUDENTS NOTICE?
First impressions matter. Staff involved in recruitment will confirm that first-time visitors, including potential students or employees, respond to what they see and experience when they step onto campus. But once they enroll or are hired and are settled in do they start to overlook the faded walls, cracked sidewalks, overgrown hedges, stained ceilings, the odd toilet that doesn’t flush?
Students at Brooklyn College in New York don’t. They are blog- ging and posting to Instagram and Facebook about what they see as the crumbling infrastructure on their campus. Nicknaming the school “Brokelyn College,” they have shared photos of broken floor tiles, leaky ceilings, broken elevators, a cockroach in the library, ants crawling on garbage in a cafeteria, nonfunctional restroom fixtures, and more.
The “Fixing Brokelyn College” Facebook page exists “to raise aware- ness for Brooklyn College’s Broken facilities. To fight for funding!” The photos on the Facebook and Instagram sites speak for themselves.
Brooklyn College students are aware of the funding challenges their institution faces, and they are working with campus administrators to help solve the problems.
Students notice.
Streamlav View
Form, Function and Style
Low Maintenance | Vandal Resistant | Anti-Microbial
2-user Streamlav View with Line7 faucets
www.intersan.us - literature@intersanus.com - (800) 999-3101
enhance its physical plant in a way that reduces tuition increases and without putting the burden of these costs on current stu- dents,” says Chip Edmonds, executive vice president. “In essence, students are able to benefit from first-rate facilities for which they do not directly pay.” Currently, the plant fund represents approxi- mately 22 percent of the institution’s endowment.
In addition to the plant fund, Lycoming includes funding for de- ferred maintenance projects as part of its annual budget. Such needs are also addressed through philanthropy and charitable giving, according to Edmonds. When gifts are made to name new buildings or support construction, the college takes a portion of those gifts to establish new endowed funds dedicated to long-term maintenance for that building.
Hoare says that in a time of limited financial capital resources, when allocation of scarce resources defines economic ecology, it is the responsibility of facilities leaders to champion for the maxi- mum ROI from use of physical assets.
“Using benchmarks, building aging statistics, facility condition indexes and/or life-cycle cost models should be the language of rational justification for financial stewardship,” he says.
He adds that facilities professionals must have intimate knowl- edge of the campus physical plant, not just in its condition but also in its effectiveness to support the critical campus missions.
“Maintaining an indexed campus space model and under- standing how your campus physical assets are allocated toward goal driven purpose must be a stewardship requirement,” Hoare says. “Examining space utilization statistics and championing ef- ficiencies is simply another form of financial stewardship.” CPM
30 COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / MAY 2018
WEBCPM.COM