Due to budgetary issues, the St. Lawrence University administration is increasingly putting off maintenance projects, which results in an infrastructure that is old and worn-down. SLU spends only $2.1 million of the university’s $125 million operational budget on building maintenance as a result of the $10 million budget deficit, according to an Oct. 12 article by Chris Denham ’21. Students, faculty and maintenance workers witness these problems every day but little can be done without the necessary funding.
“We have always made the best of what funding we are allotted, and do a good job maintaining facilities despite some funding shortfalls,” said Chief Facilities Officer Dan Seaman. “With limited funds for addressing deferred maintenance, we become more aware of the priorities that will address the most critical maintenance items. Usually we identify projects that if not done within a year or two, the system will fail.”
“Faculty operations continually gets declined for money,” said an employee for the IT department that requested to remain anonymous. “The guy in charge of (the Humanities buildings) every year would submit capital requests to redo certain parts of the buildings and, every year, it’d get deferred. He might get money to paint the window ledges but, in the end, that’s just painting rust,” the source claimed.
The deficit could be explained by an endowment that has experienced inconsistent growth over the past decade. However, in 2017, the endowment increased by 10.6 percent, allowing for the maintenance department to finally initiate projects.
Until recently, the budget constrained many employees. “This year we have gotten more money than in previous years,” said the unnamed employee. “We are now actually able to hit our target numbers of classrooms that we’re refreshing and putting new technology into,” Seaman said.
The university administration and staff hope that “The Campaign for Every Laurentian” fundraising campaign will continue to grow the endowment and the St. Lawrence Fund. The campaign is calling for alumni around the country to send monetary gifts to spark projects and give the university more financial support.
“My hope is that we get interest from donors during the campaign who would like to see our buildings upgraded and operate more efficiently,” said Seaman. The maintenance and technology departments have identified the needs of the campus buildings. “All we need now is the funding to start accomplishing our goals to make our campus more comfortable and energy efficient,” he said.