HOUSE INCREASES SOUTHEAST BUDGET

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- The Missouri House Thursday approved state capital improvements bills that included $506,512 in funding for Southeast Missouri State University, $420,600 more than Gov. John Ashcroft had recommended.

The bills call for spending nearly $60 million statewide, much of it for maintenance and repairs on state property.

Under the House measures, Southeast in the 1992 fiscal year would receive:

$240,000 for continued planning work for a new business school.

$180,600 for construction of an elevator for the Grauel Building.

$85,912 for maintenance and repairs.

Art Wallhausen, assistant to the president at Southeast, said late Thursday afternoon that the action of the House was good news for the university.

But he cautioned that such capital improvements funding still must be approved by the Senate and signed by the governor before it will become reality.

Still, Wallhausen said of the House vote: "It's excellent news and we hope to get similar news out of the Senate.

"In light of the state's budget situation," he added, "I think this is very good news indeed."

Ashcroft had recommended that only the $85,912 for maintenance and repairs be approved in the way of capital improvements funding for Southeast.

But the House added money for the business school and the elevator project.

"We've been working real hard to get it in (the bill)," State Rep. Mary Kasten, R-Cape Girardeau, said Thursday.

Southeast received $100,000 in state funding last year to begin planning work for a College of Business Administration building.

The $240,000 included in this year's House bill, coupled with $60,000 in private funds raised for the building school, would be used to complete the planning work, Wallhausen said.

University officials have referred to the business school as Southeast's top capital improvement project.

"It's the top priority for the '90s at the university," said Wallhausen, adding that the effort to get accreditation for the business school "hangs in large part on getting that new building."

Current plans call for construction of the business school on a campus site at the corner of New Madrid and Henderson.

The project, including both planning and construction work, is expected to cost more than $14 million, with the state to fund most of the cost. Private funds raised through the University Foundation are expected to pay about $2.5 million of the total cost.

If the university receives $240,000 in planning money for the 1992 fiscal year that begins July 1, university officials will likely request state funding for the start of construction in the following fiscal year, Wallhausen said.

"We could conceivably be ready to start construction by mid-1992," he added.

Wallhausen said he was pleased that the House had included money for construction of an elevator for the Grauel Building.

He said the university had requested another $329,500 for construction of elevators for the art and social science buildings, which are among the oldest buildings on campus.

Wallhausen said university officials hope that the Senate will include funding for all three elevator projects.

"We're not trying to be greedy," he explained. "We feel those are just really in the nature of urgent or emergency type appropriations since it is a federal requirement that we have those elevators."

Wallhausen said the elevators are needed to make these buildings accessible to handicapped students as mandated by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

The capital improvements bills approved by the Missouri House call for spending about $3 million less than what Ashcroft had suggested. The House cut some $5.4 million for Department of Natural Resources land purchases and another $3.2 million for a new Highway and Transportation Department laboratory.

The bill includes $4.1 million for maintenance and repairs of buildings on college and university campuses statewide and facilities at the state schools for the handicapped.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press.