RALEIGH (July 6, 2022) – Now we know where state legislators want to put the UNC System, NC Community College System, Department of Public Instruction and Department of Commerce.
Across the street.
And now it will cost a mere $180 million in taxpayer dollars.
In what has grown to a $250 million plan to demolish and shuffle state offices in downtown Raleigh,1 the state budget legislators unveiled and approved last week orders demolition of the Administration Building just across Salisbury Street from the Legislative Building.
The plan is to replace the building with an “Education Campus” that consolidates offices for the university and community college systems, DPI and the Department of Commerce.2
As we’ve said before, moving the UNC System Office from Chapel Hill is not a new or bad idea – system officials once considered moving their offices near PBS NC’s offices in Research Triangle Park, where the UNC System already owns land.3
But as we’ve also said before, placing the UNC System within sight of the Legislative Building – where legislators can further politicize an institution that’s already overly politicized – is a very bad idea.
Never mind the expenditure of a quarter-billion dollars on administrative offices. (Is that how conservatives limit bureaucracy? Why doesn’t this expenditure make real conservatives shudder?) And never mind the parking and commuting challenges for employees in downtown Raleigh.
WHEN THE UNC BOARD OF GOVERNORS voted in May to spend $15 million to lease temporary office space in Raleigh for the move, three members – all Republicans and former members of the state House – objected.
“We have space here. It’s not costing us $15 million to maintain space here,” said BOG member and former state budget director Art Pope.
“It is my opinion that the move from here to Raleigh was done purely on the basis of politics,” said former House Majority Leader Leo Daughtry. (Daughtry, by the way, was not reappointed to the Board of Governors last week.)
“The reasons to do this seem to be lacking,” said BOG member John Fraley. “This move is going to cost us a lot of money that we do not have to spend – and could cost us $100 million, ultimately.”5
THAT TURNED OUT to be a vast understatement.
In the mere seven months since the 2021-23 budget was first adopted in November, the projected cost of the “Education Campus” has grown from $100 million to $180 million.6
How’s that for some inflation?
All to keep the university under the legislature’s thumb.
1 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article263027218.html.
2 https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2021/Bills/House/PDF/H103v4.pdf, pp. 181-182.
3 https://hew.aveltsagency.com/2022/05/some-unc-bog-members-object-to-raleigh-move/.
4 https://hew.aveltsagency.com/2022/06/115-million-for-what/.
5 https://hew.aveltsagency.com/2022/05/some-unc-bog-members-object-to-raleigh-move/.
6 https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2021/Bills/House/PDF/H103v4.pdf, pp. 172, 174.
Chris Keat says
In addition to the political concerns about the proximity to the legislature, I don’t understand how they can spend money on an “education campus” when 1) they don’t pay the university and community college system employees enough, and couldn’t spare more than an extra 1% on our salaries in the face of 8% inflation; and 2) office workers are able to work remotely. That’s the future. How many of the system office employees will utilize physical office space?
Art Padilla says
In 1970, the public higher educational system in North Carolina was highly politicized and unstable. It consisted of the 6-campus Consolidated UNC family, all under one governing board; ten other public campuses, each under its own governing board; and the highly political NC Board of Higher Education (BHE), which as a coordinating (not governing) entity, could preach but could not meddle. Its brilliant and articulate chairman, Watts Hill ,Jr., moved aside and tactically convinced young Governor Bob Scott to assume the BHE’s chairmanship.
What ensued was a political struggle between and among the BHE, the General Assembly, the Governor, the ten regional campuses, and the six UNC institutions not seen in decades in this state, ultimately culminating in the current University system. Unlike the systems in California, one of our new system’s political curiosities was the creation of individual boards for each campus. Local boards, often composed of some highly capable and successful individuals, have continued to chafe about their limited power and responsibilities compared to those of the UNC system’s board. The new system’s reason for being was two-fold: 1) to eliminate political in-fighting and legislative end-runs by individual campuses and 2) to generate further efficiency and effectiveness by deleting unnecessary program duplication and by creating uniform planning and budgetary processes. The new system was quite successful in meeting these two overarching goals, particularly during its first two decades.
Now we’ve come full circle, with a vengeance. Individual campuses directly lobby the legislature; the central UNC board and many local boards, increasingly reflective of legislative leadership, are more and more involved in operational campus affairs, especially at the larger institutions: educational program duplication across the system has grown; administrative positions and pay have exploded, at all levels, both absolutely and relative to budgeted teaching positions; politicians, lobbyists, and board members campaign for and obtain top administrative jobs across the system in an unprecedented manner; faculty pay has fallen in real terms and in comparison to pay at the private universities; the distance between the faculty and their campus boards has increased, particularly in terms of the so-called “shared” governance; and tuition and fees have increased markedly (though perhaps not as much as in some other states).
Apparently, some of our elected leaders and others are betting $180 million tax dollars that moving the system headquarters to downtown Raleigh will somehow improve these things. But I’m betting that it will irreparably worsen them.