Facilities management has been given a failing grade at Memorial University of Newfoundland. A scathing report from the provincial Auditor General, Denise Hanrahan, highlights $481 million worth of deferred maintenance and a slipshod approach to oversight that leaves administrators without a clear picture of the total space Memorial encompasses, the condition of buildings and infrastructure or the degree to which classrooms and laboratories are occupied.
“From a weak policy environment to poor space management practices to a questionable deferred maintenance procedure, it appears Memorial does not have the culture to manage its aging infrastructure,” Hanrahan observes in the audit report’s introductory overview. “There is a lack of oversight throughout the organization, with many of the figures and information used for our audit being unreliable or questionable.”
Although there is a capital renewal plan in place, spending on facilities upkeep is dramatically out of sync with the industry standard of reinvesting approximately 2 per cent of portfolio value annually. The auditor pegs actual investment at about 0.26 per cent. She hypothesizes the university should be spending $20 to $40 million every year, but is collecting just $7.8 million through the campus renewal fee charged to students, which is also the only dedicated funding source.
As of October 2024, no action had been taken on the deferred maintenance financing program that was approved in 2020 with the aim of borrowing $100 million to be applied to priority projects over an eight year period. As well, Memorial lacks guidelines for defining a capital renewal expense and the audit found that collected fees were sometimes used to purchase furniture, computers, software and other equipment. Meanwhile, Memorial’s Marine Institute, which leases its space from other entities that are responsible for its capital upkeep nevertheless received an allocation of renewal fees.
Looking at lease management, Memorial administrators were unable to confirm how much space the university leases. The auditor’s examination of 35 leases (out of a total of 60 for the period from Jan. 1, 2022 to March 31, 2024) found no evidence that other on-campus space options had been considered before third-party space was acquired.
Concomitantly, Hanrahan concludes: “the University did not effectively utilize its academic spaces”, also citing a recent consultant’s report that found that classrooms were in use about 40 per cent of the time and laboratories were in use about 22 per cent of the time during available daytime hours. The university added 1.3 million square feet of space (a 34 per cent increase) between the fall of 2012 and 2023, while the student population declined by 1.4 per cent.
Among her recommendations, Hanrahan calls for a comprehensive facilities management strategy “with attention to preventative, routine and deferred maintenance needs as well as space allocation, utilization and need” and “formal and consistent oversight processes”. She prescribes the development of a series of facilities-related policies, procedures and processes to guide delivery of the strategy and monitor outcomes. The latter would also include more rigour around leasing and renewal fees.
In response, Memorial administrators say they are working on those steps and have made some progress since the audit period ended, which was not captured in the report. “We will continue to seek innovative approaches to address infrastructure challenges,” maintains Dr. Neil Bose, the university’s president and vice chancellor.