The Legislature on Friday gave its stamp of approval to a list of 270 deferred maintenance projects across Louisiana's four college systems.
State officials have estimated the backlog of projects will cost more than $2 billion, but as a starting point, colleges have access to $75 million of special funding approved this year.
The state's college systems — LSU, Southern University, University of Louisiana and Louisiana Community and Technical Colleges — and their campuses recommended the projects that have long been in need of funding, and they'll handle project management, said Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed.
It's unclear which projects will be tackled first, but maintenance items include things such as HVAC unit repairs and replacements, roof and elevator replacements, fire alarm fixes, and sidewalk and parking lot repairs.
"This is probably the easiest list they've ever developed, because some of these are dire need. They're beyond deferred maintenance. You've got HVAC or structural issues that have been patched for a long time," Commissioner of Administration Taylor Barras told a panel of state lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget on Friday.
Barras said project cost estimates were not included to ensure colleges have flexibility to launch projects without having to continually return to the Legislature for approval. "It's not to be secretive," he added.
The approval comes after two laws were passed this year to provide funding for the badly-need projects. One, Act 723, allocates a one-time payout of $75 million from a state savings account.
The other, Act 751, sets up the "college and university deferred maintenance and capital improvement program" which authorizes bonds to be issued to cover the remaining cost of the estimated $2 billion backlog in the years ahead.
"We've been working on this for decades," Reed said. "This is Day One. This is a first step: $75 million cash to kick-start the project."
At the budget hearing Friday, state Sen. Rick Edmonds, R-Baton Rouge, told the commissioners he was worried about the threat of projects not getting off the ground despite the availability of funding. "If we're gonna fund it, we want to spend it," he said.
Reed responded to the concern: "The message has been very clear to the systems and campuses: Please expedite projects that are ready so that we can show progress, so that the Legislature will have confidence that we can continue to move this work forward."