#state buildings

[dec0mposing]

1:50am, 2021

[ryc]

[ravenrobingirl]

[virginiatowncrier]

You may know it’s a bad idea to postpone that new roof — and perhaps you wish you’d been setting aside some money over the years for the work — but if so, you’re a piker compared to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Since 2005, deferred maintenance on buildings owned by the state has ballooned to an estimated $4.9 billion from $1.5 billion, according to the Auditor of Public Accounts.

Legislative fiscal analyst Clyde Christman on Friday told the state Senate Finance Committee that’s not too far from the more than $4.1 billion that state agencies and institutions are seeking this year for major renovation projects.

It’s not really the way property-owners are supposed to look after their property. After all, fixing a problem with a renovation is usually costlier than the painting, patching or even new roof that would have prevented the problem in the first place, he said.

Christman outlined two other things that the state could be doing better.

First off, it has stopped setting aside money from its general fund operating budget as a reserve for maintenance work. Instead, the state has been using borrowed money to fund its maintenance reserve spending since 2009.

It was only in the fiscal year ended June 30 that the spending exceeded pre-recession levels, coming in just under $90 million, according to finance committee briefing documents. On the other hand, the state’s Department of Planning and Budget documented $699 million of critical maintenance reserve projects as of July 1, 2012, the briefing documents report. And a study by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia says funding in the current year covers only one-third of the maintenance reserve needs of colleges and universities.

The second sign of trouble?

Christman told the committee he wanted to start a study of how the state manages its property by looking at how much property it owns.

Problem is, he said, the state has five different databases or reports tracking that.

And none of them report the same number of buildings.

~ Newport News Daily Press