Construction at Colleges Corralled by Costs

Soaring construction costs are forcing community colleges around the state to scale back voter-approved building and remodeling projects that include new libraries, parking garages and classrooms.

Among the hardest hit is the nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District, where officials are contemplating which projects to delay or even jettison altogether from a $2.2-billion bond-financed building program.

“We’re having to contract the number of buildings that we can build,” said Darroch “Rocky” Young, chancellor of the Los Angeles system, the largest in California.

Voters in the Los Angeles college district passed bond measures in 2001 and 2003 to repair aging buildings and construct new ones.

For some campuses, the bond measures provided the first major infusions of funds for construction and repair projects in decades. But some of those projects now are on hold while campus and district officials grapple with costs that have risen at least 30% over original estimates.

Around the state, other community colleges also are feeling the effects of climbing prices of steel, lumber and concrete. Competition for skilled labor is driving up costs as well.

“This isn’t unique to Los Angeles, or even to community colleges,” said Fred Harris, assistant vice chancellor for finance and facilities planning in the California Community Colleges office in Sacramento.

Since 2000, more than 50 of the state’s 72 community college districts have won local voters’ approval for about $12 billion in bonds, Harris said. Another $920 million was to be allocated for community colleges from the state’s Proposition 55 bond measure, passed in 2004.

“I would say that most districts are going to have to scrap some projects, or at least scale them back” or find other ways to pay for them, Harris said. “It’s not because of poor planning, and it’s not just the community colleges that are suffering. Anybody who is trying to build something now is facing” the same predicament.

But Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., said college and school districts, in seeking voter approval for the bonds, routinely offer more construction than they can deliver.

“Increased cost of materials is part of it, but it’s clear these people overstate when they promise these things,” said Coupal, whose organization has opposed many of the bond measures.

Ray Giles, a spokesman for the Community College League of California, in a recent article in the organization’s newsletter, outlined some of the hard choices being weighed in districts including San Francisco, San Diego, Merced and El Camino, near Torrance.

In the Glendale Community College District, where voters approved a $98-million bond measure in 2002, a health building and a new parking structure wound up costing $14 million more than anticipated.

The higher price has jeopardized plans for an adult training center, a student services/instructional facility and a new gym, Larry Serot, vice president for administrative services, said Monday.

The district’s board will try to decide what to do about the shortfall during a special meeting on Sept. 13, Serot said. The board could scrap or delay some projects and hope for state bond funds to complete them later.

“It could be another six to eight years before some things are done,” Serot said. “But we’ve got this wonderful gift of local bonds, so at least we’re getting some things done.”

College of the Canyons, operated by the Santa Clarita Community College District, is facing similar problems. Jim Schrage, dean of facilities, said costs have zoomed 30% to 40% more than anticipated.

The school built a building for music and dance and a high-tech classroom building from the $82.1-million bond measure approved in 2001. But other projects on the campus’ wish list, including a business/public service building and expansion of the media and fine arts facility, may have to wait.

Santa Clarita college officials are hoping to stretch their construction dollars by asking the state to pay a larger portion of the shared costs.

Such a strategy, however, would put the district farther down the eligibility list, because the state favors districts that provide a 50% match.

“It’s a real crapshoot,” Schrage said. “It lowers our eligibility, but we’ll just have to wait to see what happens.”

None of the district officials contacted for this story said they were considering asking voters for more money.

Such a step would be premature, said Young of the Los Angeles district. Decisions on what to delay, scale back or eliminate will be left in the hands of each of the district’s nine colleges.

Linda M. Spink, president of Los Angeles Harbor College in Wilmington, said college officials have had to redo their construction budget three times in the last two years for the school’s $124 million share of the two Los Angeles district bond measures.

“Every single project has come in way over the original estimate,” Spink said. “It’s just knocked everything off for us.”

The college got four new buildings and a campus loop road taken care of, but may have to shelve or scale back plans for a new student union and a child development center. A new library and a building for chemistry and physics are in jeopardy, and the college doesn’t have money to carry out a plan to repave parking lots, Spink said.

At Los Angeles Pierce College, in Woodland Hills, President Thomas Oliver said projects that provide more classrooms are getting priority in spending a $292-million share of the local bonds. Put on hold were construction of a $5-million art museum and a $4-million physical education facility, among other things.

The college will decide this fall which remaining projects will be pushed down the priority list, Oliver said.

Los Angeles Mission College, in Sylmar, slated for nearly $177 million from the bonds, dropped plans for a $17-million central electrical plant, college spokesman Eduardo Pardo said. Instead of spending $40 million on two parking structures, the college will build only one and repave a parking lot for $3 million.