The 2017 “State of Facilities in Higher Education” report released in late January showed that several North American colleges and universities are moving forward with the high-risk strategy of building new campus facilities in an effort to keep up with student enrollment. The report stated that there was more than 10 percent growth in campus space from 2007 to 2016, outpacing enrollment growth of just 8 percent during the same time frame.

“In light of the facilities management challenges facing higher education institutions — notably large segments of aging building stock and flattening if not declining enrollment trends — it’s extraordinary to see that many higher education decision-makers are choosing to add new buildings to their campuses,” said Mark Schiff, president of Sightlines, in a statement. “While our research indicates that institutions are taking steps to invest more strategically in facilities resources, the vast majority continue to underestimate the renewal needs of deteriorating spaces while pushing high-risk investments into new facilities.”

Sightlines’ fifth annual report highlighted that this is the fourth consecutive year that space growth has outpaced enrollment growth on North American college campuses. The study includes data from 366 higher education institutions in the U.S. and Canada, with an overall enrollment of 3.1 million students and 1.5 billion square feet of campus space.

Other highlights from the 2017 report included the following:

• Campus facilities operations budgets have failed to keep up with inflation, creating stress on service levels. The report found that average campus facilities operating budgets rose from $5.51 in 2007 to $5.94 in 2016, a nearly 8 percent increase.
• A huge wave of campus facilities construction in the 1960s, which accommodated the surge in Baby Boomers, is reaching the end of its usefulness in the next decade, creating significant stress on institutions as to what to do with those buildings. This wave of aging buildings now represents 40 percent of the space on campuses.
• Another large wave of campus facilities construction in the 1990s-2000s will require massive maintenance outlays in the next decade, presenting a significant capital demand on institutions. This wave of further enrollment growth and expanding program demands represents another 30 percent of campus space.
• Many institutions are recognizing the expanding need for facilities maintenance resources and, since the downturn of 2008-09, have been increasing maintenance budgets to tackle the challenge. In fact, even in the face of tremendous space growth to match enrollment growth, facilities funding at research institutions is up 14 percent.
• Oddly, institutions don’t extend this maintenance expansion trend to their landscape programs. In spite of the fact that landscaping is a relatively inexpensive place to invest operating dollars, grounds coverage areas have actually decreased 3-4 percent over the past decade.

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Deferred maintenance is a challenge plaguing many colleges and universities around the country. As funding tightens, the facilities department is typically among the first required to make do with less funding. This is in part because the facilities department needs are often less visible than the competing needs of faculty salaries and financial aid. However, putting off necessary maintenance today ultimately leads to more severe — and more expensive — problems tomorrow that could impact a facility’s ability to effectively compete.

A maintenance backlog can seem overwhelming when approached as a whole, particularly if the maintenance has been deferred for some time. But when facilities managers categorize their projects, they can create a prioritization system that helps them to balance the various needs, and budgets, of different projects. You can prioritize projects by putting each into one of three categories that indicates the level of damage caused by deferred maintenance. This system also benefits facilities managers who must make an easily digestible case to those financial stakeholders who will make the ultimate decision about whether or not to invest in maintenance projects.

Shifting from New to Existing Facilities

Until recently, many higher-education institutions have focused their attention primarily on adding new facilities to their campuses. These institutions have viewed adding buildings designed to meet the latest expectations as the most visible way to attract leading faculty and the brightest students. However, this investment often comes at the expense of existing buildings. This can be especially problematic when the school leadership doesn’t take into account the long-term maintenance investment that will be necessary to support their new facilities, on top of existing maintenance needs.

There are two types of costs associated with maintenance, both of which must be considered.

• Keep-up costs: Describes the ongoing annual investments necessary to keep buildings performing properly and able to perform during their full useful life.

• Catch-up costs: Describes those charges that come as a result of the accumulation of repair projects that have been deferred as well as any modernization improvements necessary for the facility to perform competitively.

When new construction is prioritized over maintenance for improvements to existing buildings, catch-up costs often grow unwieldy. At some point, however, these costs must be addressed in order to prevent a significant breakdown.

The alternative is to wait until systems suffer a catastrophic failure, at which point the expense and frequency of emergency repair costs will grow far beyond the budget you can plan for today.

Classifying your projects according to these costs will help in your prioritization of capital investments. But there are other factors you can use to prioritize the greatest need for maintenance attention.

3 Criteria for Evaluations

Not all buildings or building needs are equal. And this is a good thing, as presenting financial decision-makers with an overwhelming list of project needs, rather than a clearly prioritized list of items to address over time, is a surefire way to cut short the funding conversation. Consider the following three factors to help evaluate your projects and determine how quickly their needs must be addressed:

1. Condition: The degree of impact the deferred maintenance has had on the overall performance of a facility will of course be the most pressing concern. Some facilities will show immediate need for refurbishment, while others may be able to continue operating for several more years with only moderate upkeep. Others may be ready for tear down to make way for new construction. An assessment should include details about how well the building is performing and list its most immediate and long-term needs.

2. Function: Those buildings that play the greatest role in helping an institution achieve its overarching mission should take a lead on the list of facilities in need of maintenance. Consider whether or not a proposed project supports the institution’s goals and/or improves its financial performance. If the answer is yes, then this is a high-priority project.

3. Impact of Improvements: Will proposed improvements be visible to staff or students? Will they present savings that in some way reduce spending? Maintenance improvements that are likely to leave a tangible impact should lead on your priority list.

By determining which projects meet one or more of the criteria above, facility managers can begin to put in place a plan that will, over time, demonstrate a clear path to campus improvement.

To read the entire article, check out the July/August issue of School Construction News.

Jay Pearlman is associate vice president, marketing, at Guilford, Conn.-based Sightlines, an expert on facility planning.

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While there may not be much a facilities manager doesn’t know about the buildings on an institution’s campus, knowledge of the college or university budget is generally an altogether different matter. Yet when many facilities managers approach campus executives and board members with requests for added funding, they expect those financial and administrative decision makers to immediately understand why facilities funding must come before other requests.

It’s no wonder that backlogs across many higher education campuses are growing as maintenance is deferred. To successfully secure funding for improvements, facilities managers are best served by taking a closer look at how they communicate requests. By speaking the right language, facilities managers may offer more convincing arguments — and see funding requests granted more often.

Defining the Shared Problem

Too often, facilities managers describe funding needs by explaining (sometimes in exhaustive technical detail) the nature of a problem. That’s often the first communication breakdown.

A college president or university board of trustees is most concerned about the impact a problem will have on the campus and the university’s overall mission. Instead of highlighting the problem itself, facility managers may want to convey the consequences that could be felt if the problem isn’t solved. Campus executives and board members need enough information about facilities requests to evaluate and fund them. Information shared with these professionals should convey the risks of failing to act as well as the positive results of completing a project.

Improving Communication Channels

The following three steps can help facility managers to more effectively communicate facility needs and concerns:

1. Define a clear set of priorities that can help executives understand the relative urgency of each project. Begin by assessing needs. These are key takeaways which can provide financial and administrative decision makers with the facts they need to objectively consider the situation. Categories might include repairs, maintenance needs and improvement costs.
2. Challenge every technical term. An insider’s knowledge doesn’t impress anyone, and it certainly doesn’t make an argument more convincing — just as switching to a broader discussion in layman’s terms doesn’t mean an audience isn’t shrewdly considering the solutions to the stated problems. Step back from overuse of jargon and ask if there is a layman’s term that might work instead. If not, will someone with limited facilities background understand the term? If not, provide a brief definition. Data, in particular, can help in these conversations as it shows definitively the nature of a problem or how a facility compares to peers — and how a solution can provide a competitive edge.
3. Discuss facilities needs in the context of the institution’s mission. Pinpoint the areas that most concern decision makers when it comes to campus improvements. Outline needs in terms of how a repair or other investment would impact the institution’s ability to perform its mission. How exactly does the institution benefit from an investment into the maintenance backlog? If the answer seems obvious, remember that it might only be obvious to those entrenched in these problems day-in and day-out. Help executives understand how a project will deliver a return on the money they invest.

Stop the Confusion

By communicating problems through a shared financial vocabulary, facility managers can ultimately eliminate confusion that could hinder the urgency of funding requests. Developing a shared vocabulary can be a challenge. But it can also be a strong first start toward gaining an ally among university decision makers.

Peter Reeves is an associate director of member services at Sightlines and currently is responsible for service delivery of the operations teams in the Pennsylvania and Oregon offices. 

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Nancy Targett, UNH provost, said in a statement that the university is pleased to see continued progress by institutions of higher education in reducing the sector’s contribution to climate change.

“Leadership in sustainability has always been important to UNH, both in our practice and in helping other institutions — so we’re excited about the ways in which the report’s findings can advance a vital conversation about how to rapidly accelerate that leadership to achieve greater sustainability across higher education,” she said.

The report, “State of Sustainability in Higher Education 2016,” is the second annual study produced in collaboration by the two organizations. It was based primarily on data from the 377 colleges and universities that provide information to Sightlines, the largest third-party verified database of higher education facilities data in North America, according to a statement by the company. These institutions represent all geographic regions of the U.S. and have a collective 1.5 billion gross square feet of facilities assets. The database is comprised of 59 percent public institutions and 41 percent private institutions.

Data collected, however, show that campus carbon footprints may be under-reported by more than 30 percent. Most campuses currently report few if any emissions associated with purchased goods, construction, capital reinvestment or demolition, according to the statement. New tools and standards are evolving to encourage and support collection of this missing data — and the report argues that higher education institution are in a position to help lead a shift globally, across sectors, by engaging in this challenge.

The study also found that sustainability policies are lacking when it comes to entire building lifecycles. Formal policies that promote sustainability and help minimize environmental impact are common for new construction projects, but the study found these policies are largely absent for other phases of the building lifecycle. For instance, 80 percent of Second Nature Carbon Commitment institutions have committed all new construction to earning a minimum LEED Silver certification. Such formal policies, however, have not yet been widely adopted in terms daily operations, capital reinvestment or building demolition.

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Many higher education campuses across the country desperately need to address mounting deferred maintenance backlogs. However, many of these institutions opt to allocate capital to more visible programs, leaving maintenance needs unmet for far too long. The resulting deferred maintenance may save money in the short term, but in the long term can lead to higher costs, as poorly maintained systems burn out before their expected end of life.

In some cases, funds to address deferred maintenance projects are simply not there, as many institutions continue to rebound from the economic downturn of 2007 to 2009. But in all too many instances, facility managers are unable to make the case for funding this necessary maintenance.

The first step to solving this problem is ensuring that the key decision makers have an accurate understanding of the high cost of deferred maintenance.

Competition for Capital

Before presenting the facts to financial decision-makers, it’s important that facility managers understand what they’re competing against.

The three biggest expenses for higher education institutions are financial aid, faculty compensation and facilities. Financial aid and faculty

salaries take the lion’s share of the campus budget. These are necessary expenditures for attracting quality faculty and students. Although facilities are equally critical, this department rarely gets the attention — or funding — the other departments enjoy. Maintenance needs, seen as behind the scenes, seem the simplest to push off.

Unfortunately, the lack of funding for facilities makes it challenging for facilities managers to make necessary upgrades and perform the routine preventive maintenance that keeps these buildings attractive places to live, learn and work. Maintenance delays only worsen the issues that come from aging infrastructure.

More challenging yet, enrollment trends are increasing the competition for funding on campuses. In areas where college and university enrollments are seeing declining or stagnant numbers of high school graduates, many institutions are dealing with unexpected amounts of unused space. And in states like Texas and Utah, where enrollments are facing unprecedented increases, capital is being spent on new solutions to relieve overcrowding.

Costs Become Higher Costs

Virtually every campus across North America has a backlog of deferred maintenance. However, maintenance can’t be deferred forever. When critical systems from roofing to HVAC to electrical are not upgraded or even serviced on a regular basis, institutions are increasing the chance that today’s problems will grow worse tomorrow.

The bigger problem caused by a growing maintenance backlog is that deferred costs ultimately lead to higher costs. This is because when facilities systems receive less preventive maintenance than advised by the manufacturer, these systems will break down well before their projected replacement date. Frequent emergency repairs and more rapid replacements are far more costly than planned maintenance when viewed in the long term.

Communicate the Problem

Facilities managers seem to face an ever-increasing number of challenges when it comes to the problem of deferred maintenance. The best solution for these challenges is clear communication of the problem.

Strong data demonstrating campus performance, including in comparison to other campuses, can be an invaluable tool in prioritizing the areas most in need of improvements. These metrics also can be useful in communicating the need for facilities funding. It’s up to facilities managers to present their challenges and clearly communicate a path forward to board members, trustees and other key decision makers.

Address Deferred Maintenance

It’s understandable that many campuses have had to push back maintenance on their buildings and systems. Unfortunately, the annual maintenance backlog will only continue to grow, even if the available capital does not. At some point, these problems will need to be solved. With a clear understanding of their department’s needs and a clearly stated plan forward, facilities managers will find they can contribute to campus savings.

Jay Pearlman is associate vice president, marketing, at Sightlines. He has been with the company since its inception in 2000 and has played a variety of roles, including those in operations, business development, quality control and product development. 

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The façade sports six individual, concrete basketball ball wall panels created by transferring original architectural drawings to a computer-guided router system.

To enhance the ball detail, the cut lines were made at various depths and radii. And, while the entire tilt-up gymnasium structure was lightly sandblasted, the pecan-colored basketballs received a medium sandblast, exposing the aggregate and creating a texture that mimics a real basketball’s pigskin fabric.

A collaborative project between Layton City and the Davis School District, the $3.2 million, 34,875-square-foot Central Davis Junior Gym is situated on the district’s junior high campus and used by students during the day. In the evening and on weekends the facility is open for community recreation programs.

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