Spending What We Don’t Have
And then spending some more.
That seems to be the standard operating model for the N.C. General Assembly, where the Senate recently approved taking on $451 million of non-voter-approved debt for, among other items, building some new engineering facilities for N.C. State and AT&T State.
The bond debt doesn’t include funding for operations, once the new facilities are actually built. But apparently, that doesn’t matter. The state can’t even afford to operate buildings in the UNC system that are already up and running, or nearly ready to open, including a bevy of facilities at UNC-Charlotte, according to the latest from the uptown paper of record:
In all, UNCC officials have asked for more than $4.4 million to run the six buildings – including $2.5 million to operate the school’s new bioinformatics building – for the next fiscal year, beginning July 1.
If they don’t get the money, the school would be faced with either cutting expenses elsewhere, or closing the buildings, said Beth Hardin, vice chancellor for business affairs.
Her concerns increased after UNC President Erskine Bowles warned that as many as 17 buildings across the system’s 16 campuses could be “mothballed” if the state doesn’t come up with the money for items such as utilities, maintenance and security.
It becomes increasingly clear with each passing week that our elected officials, on pretty much every level of local and state GovCo, are completely disconnected to any sense of fiscal reality.
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