The basement of Lincoln Hall looks half-finished. Rows of pipes line the ceiling and paint chips off the walls. People who walk through basement hallways must awkwardly lower their heads to avoid hitting protruding pipes.

Diane Muehl, graduate student in sociology, has her office down here. Her concrete walls were once white but now have an uneven texture as paint has chipped away.

Light streams in one window above her desk. Although the University plans a $52 million project to renovate all of Lincoln Hall, the improvements — like others on campus — are stalled because of budget cuts that took away the needed state dollars.

"It was easier for students to find us when we were upstairs," Muehl said. "It's much more difficult for them to find our offices down here."

The University received $2 million from the state to design a renovated Lincoln Hall, but the other $50 million for actual construction isn't there. The state has slashed the University's budget along with many other government agencies in order to recoup a $5 billion budget shortfall.

"We can't do anything until the state appropriates the rest of the money for the renovation," said Terry Ruprecht, associate provost. "Once we expend the $2 million, we'll just have to wait."

The University has been looking for more money for the remodeling project for at least five years, he said. But other campus buildings are crumbling and finding funds for all of them is no simple task.

The money the University receives for capital improvements usually comes from bond sales and is kept separate from the University's operating money.

"We typically only get one major project a year (from the capital budget)," Ruprecht said.

Quad buildings get the highest priority, Ruprecht said. And because Lincoln Hall is one of the biggest and oldest buildings on the Quad, it would have gotten more funding except for budget cuts.

Ruprecht said the University expects to receive the rest of the $52 million needed for the project in fiscal year 2005.

"In general, the state wouldn't appropriate $2 million if not planning to go ahead with the project," he said.

That might be assuming a little much considering Becky Carroll, spokeswoman for Gov. Rod Blagojevich's Management and Budget office said next year's budget isn't looking any better.

Still, if Lincoln Hall is a priority for the University and it is struggling, some buildings located away from the Quad receive even less attention.

Paint chips off the side of the General Curriculum Center, 912 S. Fifth St., which serves to welcome and advise students who come to the University without a major. Some students might not notice the two-story, drab house is owned by the University when passing by.

"The building is functional, I guess it's just the appearance we can't get taken care of," said Jessica Maring, general curriculum secretary.

Carolyn Larson, general curriculum secretary, said the house has not been painted in at least 10 years. And that's just the beginning of the cramped advising office's problems.

"We're just crowded here," she said.

While capital improvements are hurt, the University's operating budget has been hit even harder because it feeds directly from University funds. The operating budget comes from sources like tuition and fees, gifts, grants and endowments.

"The state's economic situation has far more drastically affected our operating budget than our capital budget," Ruprecht said.

While gifts and endowments go to the building or campus area of the donor's choice, the rest of the operating budget deals with general repairs and fixing things that break, said Lyle Wachtel, associate vice president for facilities planning and programs. The less-cut capital budget deals only with major remodeling projects, Wachtel said.

To receive money from the state, the facility planning committee — representatives from each college at the Urbana-Champaign campus — submits project requests to University-wide administrators. Administrators review the requests from the University's three campuses and submit recommendations to the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

Don Sevener, spokesman for the board, said the board reviews requests from all state universities.

"We consider factors such as renovations of existing facilities, which is of a higher priority than buildings starting from scratch," Sevener said.

The board ranks about 45 projects and submits the list to the governor and the General Assembly. The University usually gets two or three of its requests, but last year the state funded hardly any.

For the current fiscal year, the board requested the $342 million for higher education across the state. The governor's budget gave $107 million and the General Assembly approved $112 million — still less than a third, Sevener said.

"Certainly the overall state budget condition makes the capital budget tighter," Ruprecht said. "It's simply harder to get projects funded when economic times are bad."

Most of the smaller remodeling and repair projects come from the Repair and Renovations fund. The University reserves money from its operating budget for the fund, which pays for about 10 or 12 projects, Ruprecht said.

"(The state) likes to see people investing in existing facilities," he said. "And that's part of what we try to do."

Jack Dempsey, executive director of facilities and services for the Urbana-Champaign campus, said the University tries to finish the most important repairs each year.

"The number one priority is life safety," Dempsey said. "So if a building doesn't have a fire alarm then that concern rises to the top of the priority list."

The University has already spent $2 million on life safety — fire alarms, exits signs and exit lighting, for example — for the last year and expects to spend about another $4 million in the next year, Dempsey said.

"We can't have students and faculty running around in these buildings when they are unsafe, so life safety is our first priority," Dempsey said.

But other repairs may have to wait. In Lincoln Hall, Muehl said some fixes are just left to custodians.

"In fact, we probably get better care since we're down here with [the janitors for the building]," Muehl said.

But Muehl won't be in the crumbling basement next year. The University is no longer funding her research.

"Budget cuts cost me my job."