Jamie Howell
    Staff Writer

On Oct. 21, 2015, Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law the Connect NC Bond act, which will be voted on by the people of North Carolina in the 2016 primary ballot.

If passed, according to governor.nc.gov, the Bond Act would allocate $2 billion for higher education, the National Guard, parks, infrastructure and agricultural research.

“We fought hard for this legislation because I truly believe the Connect NC investments in education, our parks, agriculture, along with water and sewer infrastructure will increase North Carolina’s economic competitiveness and quality of life,” Gov. McCrory said in a statement on his website.

The website also states that the population of NC has grown by 2 million people since the last Bond act was passed in 2000.

“Infrastructure is key, I think, in making sure that you’re keeping up with the pace of need,” Nikki Baker, the interim director of strategic initiatives at UNC-Greensboro, said.

Dr. Julia Jackson-Newsom, senior advisor to UNCG’s chancellor, also made comments regarding the bond act.

“Guilford County in particular stands to gain tremendously, partly because we’re a little bit unusual that we have two universities and a huge community college,” Jackson-Newsom said. “Also because the National Guard facility here will receive significant funding, so the impact really is large.”

According to Baker, UNCG would receive $105 million of the bond, mainly to demolish the McIver building and rebuild it into a nursing and STEM instruction building.

The new building would be created with the purpose of having new technologically advanced classrooms that are flexible for the future and not standard lecture halls.

Jackson-Newsom mentioned that the McIver building currently has many maintenance issues, which limit the school’s ability to use it.

“[there is] a list of things we need to fix in all of the buildings, we can only fix what we have money to fix. So it’s called a deferred maintenance list and any time we get a pot of money for those repairs they look at the list and determine what the most essential thing is right now,” Jackson-Newsom said.

Baker also highlighted the maintenance of the current McIver building.

“It has a multi-million dollar deferred maintenance, what we would have to pay just to get it up to code and fully functional,” Baker said. “Even if we get it up to code, it’s not going to be feasible to use for this actual strategic need.”

Baker stated that because of the growth in the number of students at UNCG in the past 15 years, getting into certain classes can be difficult.

“In biology, for example, our labs are at 160 percent utilization,” Baker said. “That means that lab sections are full or above capacity. So you get restricted on how you can progress.”

If the bond act passes, the new building could be used in ways that the current McIver building can’t be used because of maintenance and class size limitations.

“It’s important for our students to progress through and make a timely graduation,” Baker said.

According to governor.nc.gov, the Bond act, if passed, would not be paid for through taxes but instead with the accumulation of debt.

Because NC is paying off its current debt so quickly, taking up new debt wouldn’t raise payments so much as extend them so that taxes wouldn’t need to be raised, according to Baker.

“That’s the other piece of this, it is so inexpensive to borrow money right now that the timing is really ideal for this,” Jackson-Newsom said.

There are different ways to fund buildings on campus, according to Jackson-Newsom

“We do rely on the state to build academic and instructional buildings like this,” Jackson-Newsom said.

Baker stated that the cost of building a nursing and STEM instruction building comes from three main things: the demolition cost of taking down the McIver building, new classrooms with a higher technological capacity and the utility costs of keeping the new building running.

“If you’re buying a house you don’t want debt that’s going to outlast your house,” Baker said. “You want a house that’ll last 50 years and debt that will last 20 to 30 years right?”

Jackson-Newsom also stated that they have been working with Guilford Technical Community College and other people around the state who would receive funding from the Bond act.