The UNC Department of Housing and Residential Education’s more than $250,000 expenditure on bed rails for all 8,500 beds this year is a disturbing example of poor financial management that is all the more painful to see amid the economic and budgetary troubles the University is currently facing.
Last year, about 1,000 students requested rails for their lofted beds, a spike in demand that coincided with a mother’s deadly fall from a bed.
Only months after the incident was it found that she was attempting to climb in or out of bed.
Given the high publicity of the incident last year and low bed rail request numbers in previous years — usually about 30 per year — there is absolutely no reason to suspect that the University would ever need 8,500 bed rails unless enrollment suddenly increases by thousands upon thousands of students.
But the department apparently doesn’t follow the law of supply and demand.
The rationale for the purchase was to equip every bed with the safety feature, which seems to ignore the fact that many students elect not to loft their beds and, therefore, have few concerns about falling from them. Furthermore, those who do loft their beds have few accidents, especially ones as severe as the one last year.
The housing department is receipt-funded, meaning its revenue is derived from the room and board students pay. While it’s reassuring to know that taxpayer dollars did not go toward this gross over-expenditure, it doesn’t get the department off the hook.
There are certainly more productive uses for the $250,000 housing spent on the rails.
The department could pay its resident advisers or other employees better, make new hires, invest in new sports, entertainment or other equipment for the Residence Hall offices, reupholster some of the more disgusting lounge furniture, or pursue any number of other sensible options.
