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| 1/29/2009 11:49:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Red ink could sink UCM renovations
Jack Miles
Editor
Warrensburg - Politicians are finger-pointing while a funding shortfall threatens university construction projects across the state, including at the University of Central Missouri.
University officials expected project funding for Morrow-Garrison building renovation to come from the once solvent, now financially troubled, Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority.
"This is a $15 million project and of that amount, $13.2 million is to come from MOHELA funds," UCM spokesman Jeff Murphy said Wednesday. "The project is on hold until we have funding."
Contractors have worked for months, including doing asbestos removal, to prepare Morrow-Garrison for upgrades
"We have gutted the facility, basically, and the next step would be to move forward with construction," Murphy said.
The letter to UCM lays blame for the funding debacle on "the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority's inability to make its scheduled payments into the Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative Fund."
MOHELA once possessed a surplus of funds used to make low-interest loans to college students. Gov. Matt Blunt and the Republican-led General Assembly made the controversial decision in 2007 to sell off MOHELA's assets. At that time, Democrats led by then-Attorney General Jay Nixon opposed the sale.
Despite opposition, Blunt earmarked funds from the sale, worth $350 million over six years, to pay for university construction and health projects. UCM's share of the money went to Morrow-Garrison.
"We've moved forward in good faith and we've spent $829,000 in MOHELA funds so far on the project," Murphy said.
By December, MOHELA had fallen more than $12 million in arrears on scheduled payments to the state. MOHELA's inability to pay leaves UCM with debt.
"We do have bills scheduled to be paid in January. That money would be coming from MOHELA. We don't know at this point where that stands," Murphy said.
The bills come to just over $100,000.
"At this point, I'm not sure," Murphy said, about how to pay the bills.
Rep. Trent Skaggs, D-Kansas City, said his discussion with a MOHELA official suggests UCM's Morrow-Garrison building remains on the "go list" for university projects that will remain funded.
"They said if the project is off the ground, they'll be on the go list," Skaggs said this morning.
Projects not under way, however, will have to compete for a smaller pool of funding than originally expected from MOHELA, Skaggs said.
For now, not having funds idles two important buildings for students and faculty, Murphy said. The university expected to open the renovated Morrow-Garrison buildings next year.
"We've moved faculty and students to other locations around campus, so naturally they're very eager to get into the renovated facility," he said. "We're making the best of the situation."
Rep. Denny Hoskins and Sen. David Pearce said they plan to review the MOHELA situation. Hoskins said placing the renovation plan on hold might impact a plan to construct a $20.5 million, 79,000-square-foot recreation and wellness center that would open on campus in 2011.
"I'm concerned that, hey, we've got this gutted building," Hoskins said. "They tried to do economy of scale and it creates some synergy between the new school fitness center as well as remodeling (Morrow-Garrison), and now the student fitness center could be put on hold as well. ... It's kind of interrelated."
Hoskins said the state needs the work the projects represent.
"When we're trying to create jobs in this economy and all the sudden you pull the plug on these projects, it's not creating any more jobs, it's actually eliminating jobs," he said.
Officials at five universities received letters from Nixon's office saying promised construction funding is in jeopardy.
Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said there is one funding source for the campus construction projects, MOHELA. He said that source lacks money needed to fund all earmarked projects.
"When that single-funding source went south in a big way, it was going to have an impact on all these college construction projects," Holste said Wednesday.
Holste said Blunt and the General Assembly set up the construction funding plan.
"There were a lot of dollars promised versus the dollars that were going to be available. When Governor Nixon was attorney general, he opposed the MOHELA plan, and one of the basis was that it would provide an uncertain funding source for these projects," Holste said.
In addition to UCM's Morrow-Garrison building plan, MOHELA's inability to pay also stalled construction plans within the University of Missouri system, and at Truman State University, Southeast Missouri State University and Missouri State University.
Hoskins said MOHELA is not broke and prioritizing available funds could salvage the Morrow-Garrison building plan.
"There may not be money for all the projects across the board that they're wanting to do, but I would think the priority would be on those projects that have already been started, like the Morrow and Garrison buildings," he said, "because essentially we've got a gutted building now and what are we going to do with that?"
Pearce said the news came "as a total shock," but he has a clear idea where to go from here.
"Obviously, where I go is to try to convince the governor it was a bad decision," he said.
MOHELA has $120.9 million.
"Projects already started, they need to continue and obviously Central is one of those," Pearce said, later adding. "How do you stop a construction project? Do you just put up the fence today and tell all your union workers to not show up? That's not a very good way to manage things."
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