The UNC System Board of Governor’s decision to delay a proposal for $74 million in new construction money for 2014-15 shouldn’t affect N.C. State, according to Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business, Charles Leffler.
“I don’t see the Board of Governor’s decision to set aside this proposal and to wait and see how the budget situation looks as having a lot of impact on the University,” Leffler said. “It doesn’t really, at this point, have an immediate impact on the plans and activities that we have underway.”
However, if the BOG’s proposal was in fact granted, Leffler said the money N.C. State could have been garnered toward the designing of a new building on Centennial campus: the Engineering Oval.
“We didn’t really have it in our plans for that money to come to us this summer, so if we got it, that would have been a bonus,” Leffler said.
The BOG’s proposal consisted of two parts, according to Leffler.
The first was a $163 million proposal for repairs and renovations, but because budget director Art Pope said that money probably wouldn’t be available this year, the BOG is currently working with UNC system schools to create a prioritized list based on the funding that might be available.
The other part included $74 million for capital priorities, which would mostly be used for planning, Leffler said. Because schools would only receive small amounts of money from this proposal, they wanted to use this money to start planning larger construction projects.
“The Engineering Oval is the next building on our priority list, but that project wasn’t in the Board of Governor’s submission because it was pretty minimal planning money that they had included,” Leffler said.
Funding for certain construction projects, such as the Talley Student Union, aren’t appropriated by the state, so they won’t be affected by the proposal.
Leffler also discussed how state-appropriated budget cuts have affected construction projects at N.C. State.
“The fact that we haven’t gotten any regular, substantial allocations for repair and renovation has been very impactful since 2008,” Leffler said. “We did get some money this year, but it has been a long stretch without significant money coming in. The lack of funding we’ve received has certainly hurt us going forward with our capital plan … what we’re hoping, is to see the availability of one-time funds that we can direct toward new construction projects when the economy recovers.”
