WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER, Governor Ch. 542

My Administration has made a concerted effort to develop a
five-year capital improvement program that is based on the
State's Debt Affordability criteria for each of the five years of
the program. Projects funded for design in one year can now
reasonably expect construction funding to be appropriated when
design work is complete. This has eliminated the practice of
providing a level of design appropriations in one year that would
result in a level of construction activity in the following years
in excess of the State's Debt Affordability limits.

The five year capital improvement plan is a comprehensive program
to address the capital needs of the State, and is prepared only
after a careful review of all potential projects. Individual
project decisions made outside of this process compromise the
integrity of the overall program. By adding preliminary design
funds to the General Construction Loan of 1988 for the Plant
Sciences Building at the University of Maryland College Park
campus, the General Assembly has provided for a relatively small
portion of the project's estimated $33,500,000 cost. Given
higher priorities of the University, it is unlikely that
construction funding for this project would be available in the
General Construction Loan before fiscal year 1993. It serves no
purpose to provide design funds at this time for a project that
will not have construction funding available for another four or
five years. One real possibility is that the design drawings
would become obsolete in the interim.

The prospect of federal funding for this project is too remote to
justify the expenditure of these funds.

I am very aware of the significant capital facility needs
throughout the State. I know that within the higher education
community in particular, there is much unmet need. In many
cases, facilities at the University of Maryland College Park lag
badly behind facilities in other major research universities.
Other institutions have similar complaints. But, given the
constraints of debt affordability, we cannot responsibly commit
these design funds to a project that will not receive
construction funding in the next few years. We will, however,
seriously pursue other funding alternatives which may allow us to
address this and other important unmet capital needs.

Sincerely,

William Donald Schaefer

Governor

- 3621 -