No Quick Fixes for Problem of College Repairs : Maintenance: From leaky roofs to electrical failures, colleges nationwide are deteriorating. Billions are needed, but only a small fraction of the money is available.

On the lawn outside UC Irvine’s College of Medicine, steam and mud bubbled like a sulfur pit at Yellowstone. A mocking sign nearby read “Old Irvine,” but it was no laughing matter.

A series of welds had burst again in an underground pipeline ferrying pressurized 380-degree water to the research lab. It forced a shutdown of vital heating water to the complex during repairs on the chronically leaky pipes last February.

Eight days and $300,000 later, the problem was fixed. But that meant $300,000 less for needed work on the campus’s central heating and cooling plant, said Larry R. Givens, UCI’s assistant vice chancellor for facilities management.

It’s par for the course at UCI, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Cal State Fullerton--in fact at virtually all California public universities and community colleges. They are among hundreds of deteriorating campuses across the nation, which are faced with an estimated $60-billion to $70-billion backlog of repairs of everything from leaky roofs, woefully outdated heating plants and crumbling masonry to overloaded electrical systems and mandatory seismic and environmental upgrades.

At least $20 billion of that work is critical to maintain the health, safety and educational mission at these schools, according to a national study for the Assn. of Physical Plant Administrators of Universities and Colleges (APPA).

These are the unglamorous expenses that, amid the current round of state budget slashing, are deferred to yet another year. But the problem can be ignored no longer, say APPA officials, who titled their 1989 joint study: “The Decaying American Campus: A Ticking Time Bomb.”

“At some point, the bill has to be paid,” said Jack Hug, assistant vice chancellor for physical plant services at UC San Diego and the immediate past president of APPA.

Statewide, the price tag for maintenance postponed at public colleges and universities is estimated at $440 million. Some money is allocated by the state to address the need, but experts say it does not begin to keep pace with demand.

This academic year, the nine-campus University of California system will get about $15 million to chip away at a maintenance backlog conservatively estimated at $265 million, though some put the figure closer to $500 million.

The 20-campus California State University system will get $6.7 million this year toward $150 million in needed projects. The state’s 107 community colleges will split $8.7 million toward a backlog estimated at $71 million.

“You will never catch up, but our problem is that the numbers are getting bigger each year,” said Charles D. Stevens, physical plant director at Cal State Fullerton, where needed repairs and replacement costs are pushing $12 million. The university will get about $150,000 this year.

“With the money we have, we take care of those things that are necessary to provide teaching and maintain a healthy and safe environment,” Stevens said. “You sweep everything else under the rug.”

UC Berkeley, the oldest campus in the University of California system, has a backlog of at least $79.5 million of maintenance, nearly $21 million essential for the health and safety of faculty, students and staff. This year, campus officials expect to receive only $3.7 million toward those projects.

Last fall, power was cut off to one-fifth of the Berkeley campus for most of a day because of a short in a major electrical cable that had been targeted for eventual replacement.

“It failed sooner than we were able to address it,” said Nadesan Permaul, an administrator for physical resources at the 117-year-old campus.

So far, none of the campus’s many blackouts have hindered research and the university is in the midst of a major expansion to triple the capacity of its electrical plant, he said.

But there is no money to replace a threadbare carpet in the foyer of one of Berkeley’s most prestigious science facilities, Lawrence Hall. “It is really the public face of our research . . . (but) it would cost us $16,000. . . . We can’t afford to do it,” Permaul said.

Berkeley is not exactly poor. The university has raised more than $450 million for major capital construction and to endow 100 academic chairs in the coming years to attract the best minds in the next century. But none of these private donations are aimed at maintenance and upgrades.

Explained Permaul: “Why would a major donor want to give money to build a utility system or replace electrical wiring, or pave campus walkways? Those are not the kinds of gifts most people are interested in giving.”

At UCLA, a main cooling unit at the medical center gave out during a heat wave a few weeks ago.

“Fortunately, it only went out for about six hours, but it was six hours of discomfort for patients,” said Allen Solomon, an assistant vice chancellor for facilities at the 71-year-old campus. “We’ve had other cooling towers in the chemistry building go out and had to replace them on emergency basis. . . . When chillers fail, it’s always a hot time of year, when old machines are running at their maximum.”

This year, UCLA will get $2.94 million toward a maintenance backlog estimated at $42 million, Solomon said. That’s more than $1 million less than the university received last year for such projects, and $1.9 million less than two years ago.

UC San Diego also has been troubled by power outages traced to underground cable faults.

“We’ve also had some (buildings) that have been damaged because of water intrusion, you know, leaks through the walls and roofs,” said Hug, who estimated the maintenance backlog at more than $25 million.

The university receives about $1 million a year to address those needs. “But we’re accumulating almost as much annually as we’re getting funds to handle the seemingly insurmountable backlog,” he said.

A fundamental reason campuses are crumbling is that institutions of higher education, especially public ones, have failed to build maintenance costs into their yearly budgets.

“We don’t account for depreciation of assets like businesses do,” Hug said.

Secondly, colleges and universities increasingly are having to modify campus facilities to meet tougher local, state and federal regulations. Asbestos removal and seismic safety improvements at California campuses are especially costly, Hug said.

Modernizing older buildings with state-of-the-art technology is yet another issue facing universities that seek to be on the leading edge of research. Those expenses generally are considered capital improvements, and funding often is easier to find. On the other hand, the cost to maintain such high-tech buildings is often much higher, authorities said.

Problems at most California colleges and universities pale by comparison to those faced by venerable East Coast and Midwestern universities, where historic buildings in some cases are literally falling apart.

By contrast, Orange County’s two major public universities would seem to be in good shape. Fullerton opened in 1959. UCI opened in 1965.

“But even buildings that are 20 and 25 years old start to have problems,” said Leon M. Schwartz, UCI’s vice chancellor for business and administrative services.

UCI has a backlog of about $7 million in needed repairs. This year, the university will get about $675,000 toward those projects.

As UCI, Cal State Fullerton and other universities in fast-growing California expand to meet projected student demand, the maintenance problem is expected to grow exponentially unless priorities change.

UCI alone added 300,000 square feet of classrooms, faculty offices, laboratory and other buildings last year, bringing the campus total to 2.5 million square feet. (This total does not include student housing or the student center, neither of which is state funded.)

“As we’re adding all this square footage to existing plants, we’re virtually accumulating deferred maintenance from the minute we open the doors of new buildings,” UC San Diego’s Hug said.

Three years ago, campus facility managers for the UC and CSU systems met to assess the need. Hug said they determined that the state was funding barely 60% of the maintenance needs for the two systems. Their strategy now is to request 100% funding to operate and maintain all new buildings.

In the meantime, he said, “a lot of us are operating at the margin and hoping we don’t have an unexpected major emergency. There’s no contingency in yearly operating budgets for that.”

At Fullerton, Stevens’ top priority is repairing three aging elevator systems in the humanities building. He estimates the cost at $120,000.

“They’re safe, but they just need to be totally rebuilt. And I want to do it at my convenience, not when they fail,” he said.

MAINTENANCE BACKLOG

UC IRVINE’S TOP FIVE PROJECTS FOR 1990-91 *

$150,000 to replace safety railings.

$100,000 to replace obsolete elevator control systems in four buildings.

$75,000 to plug leaks causing water damage at the medical sciences complex.

$85,000 for major repairs to the campus central heating and cooling plant.

$65,000 to repair or replace underground water line valves.

* Among a backlog of $7 million Source: UC Irvine CAL STATE FULLERTON’S TOP FIVE PROJECTS FOR 1990-91 **

$120,000 to rebuild three aging elevator systems.

$6,500 to replace a tank in the central heating and cooling plant.

$57,500 to repair damaged concrete or asphalt walkways.

$16,000 to repair and repave road from student housing parking lot.

$27,000 to replace two water heating systems in the physical education building.

** Among a backlog of $12 million Source: Cal State Fullerton