Louisiana politicians earlier this year approved millions of dollars to address the piling and seemingly ever-present deferred maintenance issues of the state’s public universities.
With the intent of addressing the 270 projects statewide and costs mounting over $2 billion, lawmakers in August passed two acts that dole a one-time amount for this year and another long-term solution that’ll manifest over at least a decade.
LSU’s deferred maintenance costs total to around $668 million as of October, according to Paul Favaloro, the university’s interim executive director of planning.
Act 723 allocates $75 million as a one-time, short-term solution to kick off repairs this year. Of that amount, Favaloro said $23.7 million was portioned for the LSU system and $12.4 million of that went specifically to the Baton Rouge campus.
Act 751 authorizes the creation of a program and the issuance of bonds that’s estimated to raise $2 billion from 2026 to 2036 and intends to cover the remaining deferred maintenance costs. Favaloro said the LSU system is expected to receive about $1 billion of that. The Baton Rouge campus, he said, is expected to receive about $58 million every year of the program, if it’s fully funded.
In recent years, the university usually only averages about $7 million a year to address deferred maintenance, Favaloro said. Like paying the interest but not the principle of a loan, that doesn’t adequately address the needs of the larger problem.
“At that rate, you never catch up,” Favaloro said.
Favaloro is optimistic. He said the money received by the university can be used more liberally in regards to which ways renovation is carried out.
“It’s allowing us to look at the total deferred maintenance earmark for that building. If there’s a high level of deferred maintenance earmarked for it, we’re able to go in and gut it, renovate it,” Favaloro said. “We’re not just fixing systems where the buildings just return to its original era of construction.
What this means, he added, is that teams engaging in renovation can do so with the intent of reducing the total deferred maintenance, Favaloro said. The solutions are longer-term.
How the money is being used
Favaloro said the bulk of the money received this year is headed toward repairing Julian T. White Hall, previously known as the Art and Design Building.
About a year ago, he said, occupants noticed the building’s brick started separating from the structure. A failure in the support structure that adheres the brick to the building had given up.
Teams have been working, now for months, to strip it and waterproof the building. It currently stands unoccupied; faculty and students have been relocated to other parts of campus.
Julian T. White Hall should be waterproofed by the end of spring and it’ll be reoccupied thereafter. Renovations are expected to last until early summer next year.
Favaloro also said money was also going into the electrical infrastructure of the Life Sciences Building and had been set aside for general renovations to the Nuclear Science Building.
