The Louisiana Board of Regents may receive around $60 million in insurance money guaranteed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Wednesday’s meeting detailing FEMA money following Hurricane Katrina may help solve widespread facility issues at universities across the state, including LSU. However, the funds have yet to be delivered to the Board.
Leaky roofs, exposed wiring and broken ventilators were evident at a recent University of New Orleans site visit and are common throughout other state colleges, said Vice Chair Richard Lipsey at the Board’s Wednesday meeting.
“We’re going to absolutely ruin some of the finest institutions we have,” Lipsey said. “These problems need to be addressed.”
Lipsey said the problem lies in the system of deferred maintenance, where repairs can get tied up for months.
While Katrina’s 10th anniversary brings national focus on New Orleans’ resilience and sustainability, Board members questioned the whereabouts of insurance money designated to higher education in the state.
“$20, $30, $40 million could go a long way for these problems,” Secretary Joseph P. Farr said. “Someone needs to figure out where the money went. At some point we have to find sanity in this.”
Board of Regents member Marty Chabert, a former state senator and former LSU Board of Supervisors member, said the maintenance problems stem from as far back as two decades.
Chabert said the state put money into college buildings in the 1990s, with no forethought to future maintenance funds.
“We were putting all this money into buildings, but where’s the money for the maintenance in 10, 20 years?” Chabert said.
Board member Edward D. Markle said a revolving loan program, a possibility proposed by others on the Board, is not likely to happen.
“We budget for this, the legislature takes it away, the roofs don’t get fixed and we’re back to the same problem,” Markle said. “We can’t educate our children, our students, if we don’t get an adequate place to learn in.”
Markle suggested a “brain trust” to look toward alternative resources for maintenance, citing imminent budget cuts.
The Board also discussed a recent $20 million federal grant won by Louisiana universities, headed by LSU.
Michael Khonsari, Dow Chemical chair and LSU engineering professor, lead the Louisiana proposal for the Experimental
Program to Stimulate Competitive Research competition.
The federal grant covers the next five years and is designated for the Consortium for Innovation in Manufacturing and Materials for applications in 3-D metal printing and metal forming.
Khonsari said the competition brought in experts from out of state to review Louisiana proposals, which ranked “very high” nationally, according to the NSF program director.
The Board also unanimously approved amendments to the Uniform Policy on Sexual Misconduct, developed by the board in February.
Amendments include an annual campus climate surveys designation and confidential advisers for each campus and establishment of a memorandum of understanding with local law enforcement.
Requirements for campus policy in the amendments mandate a transcript hold on students being investigated for a sexually-oriented offense, so they cannot transfer schools while investigation is underway.
The amendments aim to comply with Act 172, passed by state legislature in June, which requires the Board of Regents to send results of the voluntary campus climate survey to the governor and house of representatives, and publish them on their website.

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Haskell Whittington

Board of Regents member Patrick J. Harington (left) listens as Collis B. Temple III (center) shares his opinions on the topic of mantenance issues presented to the board on Wednesday Aug. 26, 2015, in the Claiborne Building in Baton Rouge.