Miss-Delectable
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http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060209/OPINION01/602090304/1014
Every homeowner has a to-do list, ranging from fixing a squeaky door to painting trim, to rebuilding a slumping porch.
You never really catch up, because houses, like vehicles — and people, come to think of it — need preventive maintenance and repairs.
Unlike responsible homeowners, the state of Montana isn't keeping up on its chores. Not close.
State officials figure the cost of clearing the maintenance backlog on state government's more-than 4,000 buildings is about $142 million.
Lawmakers evidently feel we can't afford it, but we'd argue that we can't afford not to do a better job of keeping up.
"Unless something is done," said Tom O'Connell, the state architect, "the continual, slow decay of facilities will march on unnoticed until failure."
The list includes some critical items, such as roof and brickwork repairs, as well as some items that most homeowners would consider to be irresponsible to ignore: updating heating and air systems.
At the School for the Deaf and the Blind here in Great Falls, for example, heating costs are eating them alive — $12,000 in December alone, up more than a third from the previous year.
If investing in a biomass boiler, as the school would like to do, could roll thoses costs back, it wouldn't take long to pay for that boiler.
So one of our points today is that, separate from the work needed to maintain a building, some spending makes immediate sense in its own right as an investment. Over time, the state gets back its money and more. Why wouldn't you do it?
In a larger sense, routine maintenance, too, has a payback: If you don't spend a little on it now, you'll spend a lot later.
The trouble is, the state hasn't been spending much on it, so the "lot later" part is kicking in.
This forces the state — O'Connell's office especially — to resort to an increasingly extreme version of triage in deciding which projects, out of hundreds of millions of dollars in agency requests, will fit into the roughly $5 million maintenance budget.
"We have to decide which are the most abosolutely critical requests," he said. "We're losing ground."
State buildings are every Montanan's investment. They should not be allowed to deteriorate.
Every homeowner has a to-do list, ranging from fixing a squeaky door to painting trim, to rebuilding a slumping porch.
You never really catch up, because houses, like vehicles — and people, come to think of it — need preventive maintenance and repairs.
Unlike responsible homeowners, the state of Montana isn't keeping up on its chores. Not close.
State officials figure the cost of clearing the maintenance backlog on state government's more-than 4,000 buildings is about $142 million.
Lawmakers evidently feel we can't afford it, but we'd argue that we can't afford not to do a better job of keeping up.
"Unless something is done," said Tom O'Connell, the state architect, "the continual, slow decay of facilities will march on unnoticed until failure."
The list includes some critical items, such as roof and brickwork repairs, as well as some items that most homeowners would consider to be irresponsible to ignore: updating heating and air systems.
At the School for the Deaf and the Blind here in Great Falls, for example, heating costs are eating them alive — $12,000 in December alone, up more than a third from the previous year.
If investing in a biomass boiler, as the school would like to do, could roll thoses costs back, it wouldn't take long to pay for that boiler.
So one of our points today is that, separate from the work needed to maintain a building, some spending makes immediate sense in its own right as an investment. Over time, the state gets back its money and more. Why wouldn't you do it?
In a larger sense, routine maintenance, too, has a payback: If you don't spend a little on it now, you'll spend a lot later.
The trouble is, the state hasn't been spending much on it, so the "lot later" part is kicking in.
This forces the state — O'Connell's office especially — to resort to an increasingly extreme version of triage in deciding which projects, out of hundreds of millions of dollars in agency requests, will fit into the roughly $5 million maintenance budget.
"We have to decide which are the most abosolutely critical requests," he said. "We're losing ground."
State buildings are every Montanan's investment. They should not be allowed to deteriorate.