UCAT frustrated by lack of building funds

Utah College of Applied Technology leaders are tired of being ignored by lawmakers who year after year won't fund any UCAT building projects.

"Maybe we've got to go in there and pound on the table and say, 'You created us,' " UCAT Board of Trustees chairman and former Utah governor Norm Bangerter told trustees Wednesday. "We've got to be more tenacious, I guess."

Legislators passed a law in 2001 that created the UCAT, considered Utah's 10th public college with nine campuses.

But in an arena of "incredible" politics and "pet projects," UCAT building needs repeatedly get left in the fiscal cold.

That has created a "jungle" of temporary, portable classrooms on some UCAT campuses, where school presidents struggle to keep up with requests from employers for more training programs.

UCAT trustees were braced Wednesday for more "infighting" over repeat requests to the state for $42.6 million to fund five capital development projects.

That amount, as one trustee pointed out, is about how much the University of Utah asked of legislators last session to fund seismic upgrades and a new book distribution system at the U. Marriott Library. The U. didn't get any of that funding.

"We've got to get a building somehow — and I don't care where it is," said UCAT trustee Michael Madsen. "It's not like we're asking for 10 or 11 libraries — we're only asking for one" building.

With unanimous support for a motion to forward the same requests to the State Building Board, trustees also voted in favor of changing the selection process for projects. The idea is to bring in a more objective body to advise trustees on how to prioritize their capital needs.

The building board will consider the U. library and a host of other higher education capital projects in its meeting next week with the State Board of Regents, which oversees public higher education.

Working with the understanding that lawmakers rarely follow the rankings of project priorities from the building board, UCAT trustees fear once again that none of their building needs that require state funding will be met.

Only one project, a $10 million building for the Uintah Basin campus in Vernal, appears to have a fighting chance at the 2005 Legislature, according to some trustees. That's because it looks like school officials there will be able to come up with $2.1 million of the cost on their own.

In the meantime, "pent-up" demands and frustration continue to build among UCAT officials.

"I need space," said Brent Wallis, president of UCAT's Ogden-Weber campus. But it's looking like his request for a $9 million health technology building is about 10 years away from fruition.

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com