Recent developments in the current state budget crisis in Sacramento have rippled through the California State System and will immediately impact scheduled Cal Poly construction projects.
Some of the projects affected at Cal Poly are the Anderson Pool renovation and upgrades to the switchgear substation, the center for science and the science building.
“We’ve been told by the chancellor’s office to plan for a three month suspension of all these projects,” said Mark Hunter, executive director of facility services at Cal Poly.
CSU Chancellor Charles Reed announced on Dec. 22 in an e-mail addressed to all CSU employees that the nation’s largest public university system was reviewing certain bond-funded construction projects system-wide with the anticipation of suspending some of them.
The move came following the request in executive order S-16-08 from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Dec. 19 that asked University of California, CSU and California Community Colleges to restort to “other mitigation measures to achieve budget and cash savings for the current and next fiscal year.”
Reed said via an all-staff email that the system would heed the governor’s request.
For Cal Poly, this meant the suspension of projects funded by bond monies, primarily from funding allocated by Proposition 1D, for projects such as the Anderson Pool and switchgear substation upgrades.
Proposition 1D was passed by California voters in 2006 and aimed to provide $10.4 billion to K-12 schools as well as other higher education institutions.
Despite orders to halt construction on projects on campus, Hunter said that work will not completely stop for another three weeks.
“We’ve also received instructions in suspending projects at a point that makes fiscal and safety since,” he said.
The Anderson Pool project will continue for three weeks, long enough to pour a concrete slab and slope back the excavation sides to make the project shelf-safe until construction resumes.
Although completion of projects will be affected by the suspension, contractors will also be affected. DWR Construction out of Los Alamitos had the contract for the Anderson pool and, according to Hunter, has been cooperative with the situation.
“They’ve been disappointed but understanding and they’ve been working with us well,” Hunter said.
Because the projects are not entirely funded by Proposition 1D, but rather from multiple sources, it was hard to say how much exactly is being used from the Proposition 1D fund, according to Teresa Ruiz, a public affairs communications specialist for the CSU.
“Many of these projects are diverse and have many different sources of funding,” she said.
Ruiz also said that as of right now, the anticipated suspension of construction is slated for 90 days.
The switchgear substation, located in Poly Canyon, is an electrical grid that handles the input of electricity to the campus.
Hunter said that the current grid is antiquated and that upgrades are still needed.
“A lot of the breakers are 1960s vintage and we’re replacing them with modern breakers,” Hunter said.
The project is only 40 percent complete at this point.
“The intent is to restart these but for the moment they’ve been stopped,” Hunter said. “We’re just on a three-month formal suspension.”
Hunter did note that plans for the new recreation center, the Tech Park project, the completion of Poly Canyon Village, the addition of artificial turf for the sports fields and renovations to the University Union will not be affected by the current suspension.