Funding deferred maintenance was at the top of the University’s to-do list again this year.

In his Jan. 7 KU looks ahead e-mail to the University’s faculty and alumni, Chancellor Robert Hemenway named deferred maintenance, expanding the School of Pharmacy and obtaining a National Cancer Institute designation as several of the University’s top priorities.

Photo Gallery

Deferred Maintenance

Photo gallery of the need for funding to repair the utility tunnels, which the University runs all of its pipes, including heating, electrical and ventilation through.

Hemenway said the University’s proposals would help the University continue to work for Kansas. The following week, in her Jan. 14. State of the State speech, Governor Kathleen Sebelius showed her approval of the University’s requests by asking the Legislature to support those three priorities.

Sebelius asked the Legislature to donate $5 million of its budget to the University for cancer research. She also asked the Legislature to donate $50 million to the University to build a new School of Pharmacy in Lawrence and a new floor for pharmacy at the School of Medicine-Wichita, as well as an additional $1 million for administrative costs for the two schools.

Jim Modig, director of design and construction management said that last year the Legislature donated about $32.9 million to the University for deferred maintenance as part of a five-year plan. However, Hemenway estimated the deferred maintenance would cost the University about $230 million.

Hemenway said the utility tunnels at the University constitute the bulk of the deferred maintenance. He said it would cost at least $100 million to fix the tunnels. Modig said the Legislature allotted only $8.8 million over the next several years to the University to fix the tunnels.

The University runs all of its pipes, including heating, electrical and ventilation, through the tunnels, which range from 20-45 feet below the ground. Modig said several of the tunnels were failing structurally. He said the bottoms of the tunnels were rusting away and would collapse if they were not repaired.

Hemenway said the deferred maintenance of the tunnels may not appear to be a huge concern to the state and to citizens, but if there was a malfunction in the tunnels, the University would have to shut down entire buildings or services.

Hemenway said several years ago a malfunction forced the University to rent generators to power Watson Library and Stauffer-Flint Hall, where the School of Journalism is located. He said the University had to take money away from other major projects to solve that crisis.

“It becomes an interesting question,” Hemenway said. “Do you make sure the students have the environment that enables them to study, or let something bad happen so the students go to the Legislature and ask them for more money.”

Hemenway said the University hopes someone will donate money to the University specifically for deferred maintenance. If that does not happen, Hemenway said the deferred maintenance would simply have to be delayed until the next year when the University will request additional funds from the state.

Hemenway said the University had worked on receiving a National Cancer Institute designation for four years. He said he thinks it will be a few more years before the University meets the benchmarks established by the National Cancer Institute to be named a comprehensive cancer center. Hemenway said the designation is important to him because he wants the University to be known as a place where people can successfully be treated for cancer.

“There is an inherent benefit that comes to students because students will be touched by cancer.”

Hemenway said obtaining a new School of Pharmacy at the University is of the utmost importance because the school is the only one in Kansas. He said the University is obligated to make sure there are an appropriate number of pharmacists in Kansas. Hemenway said six counties in Kansas have no pharmacists and additional 30 have only one.

Barbara Ballard, Lawrence’s state representative, said she was not positive that the Legislature would donate the funds the governor requested to the University because the state was working with a small budget this year. She said she had not heard any negative statements from her fellow representatives about the governor’s requests and as far as she knew the majority of the Legislature thinks the chancellor and governor’s priorities will benefit the entire state.

—Edited by Sasha Roe