Agencies, universities request $545 million for upgrades, construction

State agencies including the university system took their pitch for repair and construction projects before the Public Works Board this week.

Two full days of hearings were set Wednesday and today for the board to review and prioritize the 19-page list of projects totaling almost $545 million.

While that sounds like a lot of money, it's one-third the $1.5 billion in projects requested two years ago. Lawmakers in the 2009 session approved $844 million worth of projects but, except for necessary maintenance and life/safety issues, most were canceled because of the state's budget crisis.

Board members won't settle their priorities until later this fall after the Budget Office and Treasurer's staff calculate how much cash and bond money is available for capital improvement projects.

Most agencies concentrated on repair, maintenance and upgrade projects rather than new construction this budget cycle.

The university system, however, included several new buildings in its $198 million package of 31 projects. The two largest are the new Hotel College funded in part by Harrah's and the Health Sciences building - both in Las Vegas. Each comes in at about $43.5 million. In each case, about half the money would have to come from the state.

In addition, the system wants $28.8 million to build a nursing science building on the Henderson state college campus.

Western Nevada College in Carson City has five much more modest projects on the list. The biggest is the

$2.5 million expansion of the Woody Wurster Machine Tool Technology Building. The remaining four are to replace heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems on the Child Development Center, Sage Hall and the Aspen Building in Carson City and Pinon Hall on the Fallon campus for a total of more than $1.6 million.

The Department of Corrections, which normally competes with the system of higher education for the largest dollar requests, submitted a more modest request this year - just

$79.1 million. The largest project on the list is expansion of Southern Desert Correctional Center's culinary, dining, laundry and other core facilities to better handle the additional inmates now housed there.

The list of 43 projects consists primarily of repair, upgrade and maintenance work.

Veterans Services has just two projects on its list. The big one is design and construction of a 90 bed veterans nursing home and adult day care center for $36.6 million. While the federal government will pay $23.1 million of that, the remaining $13.5 million would have to come from the state.

Two of the 35 Health and Human Services Department projects are sizable: The $47.3 million consolidated office and operations building at Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services in Sparks and the $35.2 million, 50 bed southern psychiatric hospital/prison for criminal offenders in Las Vegas.

While none of the 28 projects on the Department of Administration list is sexy, they are likely to command a higher priority than most agency requests because most are necessary maintenance such as roof repairs, seismic retrofits, upgrades to critical systems and life/safety projects such as outside step repairs at the Capitol. Altogether, they total

$46.9 million, including the $1.4 million demolition of the now vacant Kinkead Building on Musser Street.

Altogether, the list of projects would require $427.9 million in state funding and $117 million in other money, primarily federal funding. The actual money available is expected to be substantially less than that.