Big battle over building

Auraria construction goes on despite possibly no more money

Chris Barge and Jean Torkelson

Published March 25, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Chris Schneider / The Rocky

Jim Fraser, facilities director at the Auraria campus, stands in front of a scientific mural at the science building on the campus. There is no guarantee from the state to finish a new building.

Rendering of Auraria campus' new science building

A large hole on the Auraria campus represents the abyss separating educators determined to erect a new science building and lawmakers who cut off money.

The state's top education officials said Monday they would plow ahead, spending the money lawmakers gave them last year for the project, with or without a commitment of state dollars to finish the job.

"We've got $35 million and we're going to spend it," Dean Wolf, executive vice president of the Auraria campus, said at a news conference as construction cranes moved earth behind him.

Ground was broken in December. If the state funding is not restored, Wolf said work will probably continue into midsummer with the construction of four floors and concrete pillars.

"We will have to find a way to finish this one way or another," he said.

Joint Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, called that course of action "reckless," even as he scrambled behind the scenes to write a bill that could rescue funding for the $111 million project.

Buescher hopes to introduce a bill this week that would reroute future Federal Mineral Lease revenues away from K-12 education efforts and into higher education construction projects. The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village, would authorize the state to immediately borrow about $200 million - more than enough to bail out the Auraria project.

Buescher questioned why leaders at the three-school campus OK'd groundbreaking during the middle of winter - hardly peak construction season.

"I think the real question is why they went this far in digging a hole . . . without having the funding to complete the project," Buescher said. "It seems to me foolish, foolhardy, reckless to commit to a project that big when you don't know that the dollars are going to be there."

'Went by the wayside'

A nose-diving revenue forecast last week slashed state spending on construction to just $16 million next year - and zero funding for the three years after that. The science building was among seven projects with big future costs that "went by the wayside," Buescher said. A state contribution of $37.5 million toward the building was among those cuts.

Other cuts included $10 million for upgrades at four prisons; $3 million to stabilize the crumbling state Capitol dome; $3.1 million to renovate Western State College's Taylor Hall; and $1.6 million for new classrooms at Front Range Community College's Larimer County campus.

"It would have been fiscally irresponsible to give money to projects this year that would have costs two years out" - or longer, said Rep. Jim Riesberg, D-Greeley, vice chairman of the Capital Development Committee. "You can't just have a half-building standing on a campus that can't be finished and can't be used."

The funding was cut last week by the legislature's Capital Development Committee after a $48 million shortfall in the new state tax revenue forecast.

Gov. Bill Ritter's budget director, Todd Saliman, proposed slimming down many projects while keeping them in the same priority order for funding.

But the JBC decided to fund only the projects it could complete within the next fiscal year.

Building gets bumped

That eliminated the science center from a fairly comfortable spot on the funding priority list, and allowed other smaller projects to leapfrog ahead of it.

Previously unfunded projects that will now move forward include $3 million to renovate and expand the Butler Hancock gymnasium at the University of Northern Colorado; $2.8 million to remodel the academic resources center at Colorado State University-Pueblo; $2.1 million to expand the Ute Indian Museum; $2 million for an addition to Brown Hall at the Colorado School of Mines; and $1.8 million for the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan.

Loss of the science center funding was decried as "unjust" and a "travesty" by University of Colorado Chancellor Roy Wilson.

bargec@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5059 Staff writer Alan Gathright contributed to this report.

What's next

* Higher education officials and Gov. Bill Ritter's office will lobby legislators to restore funding to the Auraria campus' new science building.

* The first $35 million phase of construction will continue on the $111 million building, which broke ground in December.

* Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction and Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village, hope to introduce a bill this week that would reroute federal mineral lease revenue growth into higher education capital construction projects, authorizing the state to use the money to borrow about $200 million for projects such as the Auraria science building.

• March 25, 2008

  7:41 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  guberif writes:

  Bernie doesn't mention that the state requires capital dollars to be spent in 3 years, which is why Auraria had to start architectural design years ago, and construction last year, in order to spend money allocated in 2006 & 2007.

• March 25, 2008

  8:45 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  kcromwell writes:

  Riesberg & Buescher are saying one thing and doing the opposite.
  Two of the projects bumped ahead of Auraria, UNC's Butler Renovation & CSU Pueblo Remodel require $31,549,863 combined in FY 2010. (where do they propose funding for that is going to come from?) Of course, it is also just a coincidence that major projects for both Mesa, Military & Veterans Affairs in Grand Junction and UNC were moved up on the list....Buescher is from Grand Junction & Riesberg from Greeley.

• March 25, 2008

  8:53 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Scott writes:

  Sasquatch sez, "...let's hope that he [Ritter] doesn't bankrupt CO in the process and leave its 5 million citizens in another 'big hole.'"

  If that happens the gov (whatever it is) and the fools in the State Legislature will just float (like excrement) another Proposition (like hookers) to the voters to increase taxes (a la Proposition C) and B.S. them into thinking that it's only a one-time-deal.

  Scott

• March 25, 2008

  9:11 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  ManginoTorreta writes:

  "'I think the real question is why they went this far in digging a hole . . . without having the funding to complete the project," Buescher said. "It seems to me foolish, foolhardy, reckless to commit to a project that big when you don't know that the dollars are going to be there.'"

  This is a disingenuous statement. The lawmakers had implied to Auraria officials that the money would be there to complete it in the first place--the shock was over the funding being pulled, not that it wasn't there to begin with. I'm not sure why Auraria has to be blamed for the legislature's lack of foresight.

• March 25, 2008

  9:20 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  KalHali writes:

  If you disagree with the funding being pulled then call the JBC members and let them know how you feel, it takes a whole whopping 10 min.

  The Joint Budget Committee members, the district they represent, and their telephone numbers at the Joint Budget Committee offices are as follows:

  Representative Bernie Buescher, Chairman
  District 55-Mesa
  303-866-2583

  Representative Jack Pommer
  District 11-Boulder
  303-866-2780

  Representative Al White
  District 57-Garfield, Grand, Jackson, Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt Counties
  303-866-2949

  Senator Moe Keller, Vice-Chairman
  District 20-Jefferson County
  303-866-2585

  Senator John Morse
  District 11-El Paso County
  303-866-2581

  Senator Steve Johnson
  District 15-Larimer County
  303-866-2586

• March 25, 2008

  9:25 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  SufferingFromFools writes:

  Why does this building cost $111 million?

• March 25, 2008

  9:25 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  justright writes:

  Remember when they stopped running bus service to the kids in Jefferson County School just before the tax increase was put on the ballot? TV went out and showed kids walking down busy Kipling with rushing traffic? Remember when Guv Owens and CU Pres. went on TV and said vote yes on C&D to fix Higher Education?

  Who is guv Ritter going to Lobby? It is all Demcrats! There are no Republicans in the way. All Libs ran on Education and "fixing the problem".

  The state budget is over 17 billion dollars!!!!!! There is more money this year then last. Revenues are UP. There is always that false reporting that revenues drop. The increase is not as big as they wanted it to be but there is far more money today then last year.

  Imagine if you got a 5% raise and you went around tell everybody that your salary went down 5% because you felt you were getting a 10% raise.

  Dems definition of success is making the problem bigger. An example would be, it is not how many people no longer need welfare but how many people you can get on welfare. Their definition of success defined by increasing the problem and getting more and more and more people dependent on the problem.

  The problem never gets fixed it gets used.

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