Rutgers gets $169 million for maintenance backlog
Archived article from Sep 24, 1999
By Harvey Trabb
If buildings could smile, those at Rutgers would be grinning ear to ear now that the Higher Education Capital Improvement Fund bill, which was proposed by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman for the state's public and independent colleges and universities, has been signed into law.
The measure will make $169 million available for capital renewal and renovation needs and health and safety improvements at the university, which has a more than $300 million backlog of deferred-maintenance, access and building code-compliance projects. The New Jersey Educational Facilities Authority will sell bonds to finance the $550 million fund. Under the terms of the legislation, the university will pay one-third of the debt service on its share of the bond issue.
"Enactment of this measure is excellent news for Rutgers," said President Francis L. Lawrence. "The fact that the governor initiated and subsequently championed the plan shows her responsiveness to the need to protect New Jersey's con-siderable investment in the state's higher education infrastructure. The strong bipartisan support the proposal received in the Legislature also speaks to the commitment of the members of the Senate and Assembly to providing high-quality facilities for our students and faculty for years to come."
Legislation establishing the fund was sponsored in the state Senate by Sens. Robert Martin and Bernard Kenny and in the General Assembly by Assemblymen David Wolfe and Joseph Malone.
Projects to be funded at Rutgers under the measure will repair or replace deteriorated roofs and inoperable windows; upgrade heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems; install state-of-the-art laboratory fume hoods; and improve access to university buildings for people with disabilities, said Joseph P. Whiteside, senior vice president and treasurer.
"Approximately 40 percent of the university's facilities were constructed during the 1960s and 1970s, and these are the buildings that now require significant resources to address these problems," Whiteside said. He pointed out that addressing deferred-maintenance and code-compliance issues has been a top priority of the university's administration and the Board of Governors for a number of years.
Lawrence thanked the faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of the university who worked for passage of the Higher Education Capital Improvement Fund bill. Led by the Rutgers University Alumni Federation and including many students and parents, the group gathered signatures on postcards that were presented to legislators, made personal visits to meet with elected officials, and provided legislators with information about the positive benefits of the measure through a brochure and a Web site.
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