School Building Committee Resolution Curtails Checks and Balances on School Construction Projects
By John McNamara
A controversial resolution that removes Common Council and Board of Education approval of all contracts and spending on school construction projects came back to the Common Council April 28th meeting and was approved on a party line vote.
The resolution, authored by Republican caucus members Daniel Salerno and Sharon Beloin-Saavedra and revised at the April 15th Consolidation Committee meeting, removes key language that requires that contracts and expenditures on multi-million dollar school projects are “subject to the approval of the board of education and common council.” Instead, it vests control of School Building Committee (SBC) appointments to the Mayor, leaving the Council with two members on the seven-member committee.
According to the new resolution the SBC will “engage, select, and enter into or continue all necessary contracts with contractors, architects, landscape architects, or engineers, and within the limits of the appropriations made by the council, this committee shall engage and fix the salary of one or more construction representatives.”
Salerno and Beloin-Saavedra, acting on behalf of Mayor Erin Stewart and willingly diminishing the Common Council’s role, cite mayoral powers in the City Charter granting appointment power for all “boards and commissions” to the Mayor as a justification for the sweeping changes that hand the purse strings and contracting over to the SBC for school renovations and construction. They say they are just cleaning up the language in accordance with the charter.
As if trying to obscure the intent of the resolution, the revised ordinance has a preamble that implies Common Council members would continue to have a say in SBC meetings and deliberations or, for that matter, any other board or commission using general ordinance language on the access any common council member has to go to a public meeting: “Alderpersons may attend any meetings. The members of the council, or any of them, may attend the regular, special, or other meetings of all boards, commissions, and agencies when, in their discretion, their presence would best serve the interests of the city.”
Unlike boards and commissions mandated by the City Charter, however, the School Building Committee is created by ordinance with purposes and conditions set by the Common Council in accordance with powers granted to the legislative branch (the Council). The mayoral powers justification for ending all BOE and Council oversight on school building projects is both exclusionary and unwise given the large amounts of taxpayer money involved on these projects which are heavily reimbursed by the state and its bonding authority. Most recently makeovers of the Smalley and Gaffney schools have cost upwards of $80 million.
Although the lion’s share of funding for any school construction comes from the state, Connecticut law is silent on local school building committees, their powers and composition, according to a legislative analysis on SBCs and school construction. What the analysis does say, however, is that boards of education are ultimately responsible and must “make a continuing study of the need for school facilities and of a long-term school building program.” State statutes do no specify how local school boards must carry out their responsibility for maintaining school buildings. Nothing either requires or allows a board to, or prevents it from, establishing a permanent committee to oversee school maintenance.”
The revised New Britain resolution makes the Superintendent of Schools an ex-officio member of the SBC which is to say the BOE’s representative is an observer without a vote.
Democratic Alderman at Large Chris Anderson opposed the revised ordinance asserting that it “consolidates power, reduces transparency and eliminates checks and balances.” He was joined by five other Democrats on the Council opposing the move to usurp Common Council and Board of Education authority over public monies they appropriate and are responsible for in the school district’s buildings.
A consequence of the new SBC resolution is that it contributes to a bigger divide between City Hall and the BOE. New Britain’s close to last ranking in how much the municipal government contributes to public schools is a perennial and contentious issue at budget time every year and this year is no exception. Politically, it serves the Mayor and her Council cohorts well to disparage the BOE by implying it wastes money as they engage in tax-cut demagoguery. During the Common Council’s discussion of the SBC resolution, for example, Alderwomen Beloin-Saavedra, a former BOE President, didn’t help BOE-City Hall cooperation. She disparagingly pointed to the BOE and school administration as the place where more oversight is needed,asking: “Who’s watching the henhouse over there?”
And as with most issues to come before the Council the nine members of the Republican caucus remained rubber stamps for Mayor Stewart, ceding absolute control over the school construction process and the opportunities it presents the city administration for patronage, favors and picking contractors.
Stewart Seeks To Exclude BOE, Common Council From Approving Use Of School Construction Money
By John McNamara
The Stewart Administration, blocked in recent months by a bipartisan Board of Education (BOE) and city ordinance from filling a political patronage job on a new school construction project, will seek to remove Common Council and BOE authority on school construction spending handing the final say over to the seven-member School Building Committee (SBC) appointed by the Mayor.
A resolution filed by the Republican caucus Majority Leader Daniel Salerno and Alderwoman Sharon Beloin-Saavedra at the March 10th Council meeting would alter the membership of the SBC, by dropping Common Council appointments. It would further cede approval to “engage, select, and enter into or continue all necessary contracts with contractors, architects, landscape architects, or engineers, and within the limits of the appropriations made by the council, this committee shall engage and fix the salary of one or more construction representatives ” to the School Building Committee. The existing ordinance requires approval by the BOE and Common Council.
CITY HALL WATCH
The hiring of a construction representative for the Chamberlain Elementary School renovation project and re-roofing projects at Pulaski and Slade Middle Schools sparked controversy last year when the SBC selected Ray Moore, the former Schools’ facilities director, to be a construction representative at a six-figure salary shortly after he retired from his job at the schools. Former NBHS Principal and retired School Administrator Paul Salina, who is the Stewart appointed Director of Support Services at City Hall, reportedly pushed hard for Moore, his former colleague, to get the lucrative construction representative’s position.
BOE members, however, objected to the Moore hiring saying a newly-hired Facilities Director in the School District could handle oversight of the Chamberlain renovation without the added costs. “We try to save as much as city-wide taxpayer money as possible.” BOE Member Violette Jimenez Sims told the New Britain Herald’s Catherine Shen in a November 24th story. “For me, I would rather spend the money that would directly impact the children that they can use forever and ever and not spending it on a redundant service.”
The Moore hire was subsequently set aside after BOE Attorney Patrick McHale asserted that state statutes and the ordinance gave the BOE the right of approval of the construction manager who answers to the SBC.
For all its clout in allocating and contracting tens of millions of dollars for school construction the School Building Committee is a relatively obscure municipal government committee. It’s not easily found on the city website’s link to boards and commissions. Its Chairperson, Frances Wolski, has been a member for multiple two-year terms during the Stewart administrations. The committee has seven members but two seats are vacant as of February. The Committee’s most prominent member in recent years has been former Mayor Timothy Stewart, a position of influence he held during his daughter’s first two terms until his mysogynistic social media rants ended his tenure on the committee and as head of the Chamber of Commerce.
Last year the Council approved $57 million for the Chamberlain renovation and re-roofing projects contingent on state reimbursements. State Representative Bobby Sanchez (D-25), the Chair of the Legislature’s Education Committee, has successfully worked to get a 95% reimbursement from the state for a renovated Chamberlain School in the east end and roof upgrades to two middle schools.
The proposed School Building Committee resolution is certain to raise new concerns by Common Council Democrats over the propriety of removing Council and BOE checks and balances on school construction. School construction projects involve millions of dollars in state bond and local funds that need to be allocated with competitive bidding and full transparency, which is what the existing ordinance ensures. Ceding all power now to the Mayor’s office and the Mayoral appointed SBC creates a process that will eliminate oversight by elected BOE and Council members.
Related Story: School Building Committee Pick For Architect of Smalley Academy Renovation Has Its Share of Troubles.
Related Story from New Britain Herald Construction Bill Will Fund Three New Britain School Projects
School Building Committee’s Pick For Architect Of Smalley Academy Renovation Has Its Share Of Troubles
By John McNamara
Bridgeport-based Fletcher Thompson has been selected as architect for the renovation of Smalley Academy by the city’s School Building Committee in a close and potentially controversial vote.
Fletcher Thompson (FT) is a well-established architectural and engineering business with offices in Connecticut and New Jersey. Its roots go back a century in Bridgeport and K-12 projects figure prominently in the design services it offers.
Smalley Academy, a K-Grade 5 Elementary School, Is Due For Modernization.
The firm’s recent track record, however, shows “a litany of lawsuits,” according to a January 7, 2016 Connecticut Post story that characterized the company as “beleaguered.” That may explain an unconfirmed report that the School Building Committee’s deliberations were contentious. The vote purportedly was close on the little-noticed but powerful seven-member school building group with Fletcher Thompson getting the nod over New Britain-based Kaestle Boos Associates. One member was absent from the meeting and a tie vote developed on a motion to re-consider Kaestle Boos because it is a local bidder. The city ordinance governing municipal contracts stipulates that a city-based bidder with a low bid not more than eight (8) percent higher than the lowest bid may get the work if “such city-based bidder agrees to accept the award of the bid at the lowest bid amount.”
Fletcher Thompson’s recent troubles, according to press reports, go from nonpayment of employee pensions and other bills amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars to possible eviction from its main office to reports of cost overruns on school projects.
- The January 2016 Connecticut Post story reported U.S. Department of Labor action to compel the firm to make payments for its pensioners. At issue has been $485,000 owed 164 participants in the company’s plan. By the end of January a partial agreement was announced that requires a repayment schedule starting with release of funds from a retirement account of one of the firm’s managing partners who was named in the complaint.
- In April of this year the architectural firm also faced eviction proceedings from its Bridgeport headquarters in the former Mechanics & Farmers Bank only two years into a 10-year lease. It had relocated back to Bridgeport from Shelton offices. Soon thereafter problems arose “with contractors and providers including Cisco Systems, McLaren Engineering Group, Prudential and Fuss & O’Neill, among others, claiming the company had failed to make payments on hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments.”
- The Meriden Record Journal has reported that Fletcher Thompson erred in one part of the design of the $107 million Maloney High School project in 2014 that resulted in a cost overrun of $330,000 requiring use of contingency funds. Meriden and company officials, however, stated that change orders on projects of that magnitude are to be expected and the Maloney project has not been affected by FT’s mounting legal and financial difficulties.
- In 2012, an $85 million Southington middle school renovation project resulted in frustration and strong local objections to Fletcher Thompson’s work. Cost overruns, running into millions of dollars, went from two to 10 percent because of remediation issues. “(Building Committee Member Christopher) Palmieri said the town has been promised for nearly two years, going back to when Fletcher Thompson was first hired to conduct a feasibility study regarding middle school renovations, that overruns would not exceed two percent. Instead, they now appear to be at 8.9 percent and to 10.2 percent respectively,” according to a November 2012 news story.
While Fletcher Thompson’s widely reported financial and legal problems may have been discussed by the New Britain School Building Committee, the situation did not dissuade members from selecting the firm for the overhaul of Smalley Academy.
The Smalley Academy project in New Britain got a green light from the Common Council in June with a preliminary cost estimate totalling $53 million that some officials found to be inflated for the K-5 elementary school where renovations and improvements are long over due. By contrast the recently completed Gaffney School renovations cost $30 million. The Council go ahead gave the Building Committee, whose members include former Mayor Timothy Stewart and allies of Mayor Erin Stewart, the go ahead to solicit bids from architects. In addition to Tim Stewart school building committee members include Sheila Smith, Fran Wolski, Carmen D’Agostino, Angelo D’Alfonso, Ryan Pinard and Peter Smulski.
The New Britain legislative delegation will seek approval of state school bond funds once the project is ready to implement. The city gets 80 percent reimbursement from the state for school construction.
SEE related NB Politicus post: Smalley Academy Renovation Cost Jumps To $53 Million
Smalley Academy Renovation Cost Jumps To $53m; Public Hearing Wednesday, June 22, At Council Committee
What’s behind a $53 million price tag for renovations to Smalley Academy, a K-5 elementary school near downtown and North-Oak Streets? That question should be on the minds of the Common Council after initial estimates by school officials were closer to $30 million last year. The earlier estimate by school officials was tens of millions of dollars less than the amount now moving through approvals before the project goes to the state for bonding and to the city’s school building committee for bids and construction.
Smalley with an enrollment of 654 students is the next educational building in line for improvements in New Britain. The need for enhancement of the school is not at issue among educators, city officials and State Rep. Bobby Sanchez (D-25) whose district includes the Smalley Academy where more than 70 percent of students are Hispanic. Sanchez and members of the city’s legislative delegation are advocates for state bond support for Smalley. The city receives 80 percent funding from the state when projects pass muster and are approved at the state level. Sanchez, however, says his inquiries to city officials about the project so far have gone unanswered.
Next In Line For Renovations Is Smalley Academy (from megaeducation.com)
At issue is the feasibility plan coming out of the Council’s bonding subcommittee that puts the costs much higher than prior estimates. In the last major New Britain school renovation at Gaffney School – which has a comparable enrollment and size to Smalley Academy – the total cost was $30 million. A former high-level New Britain school administrator says the $53 million price would be more appropriate for new construction at a larger school, not improvements and upgrades to Smalley.
On Wednesday, June 22nd at 6:30 p.m.the City Council’s Committee on Administration, Finance and Law will vote on whether to accept the $53 million appropriation and bond authorization for the school renovation and expansion project. Public comment will be invited prior to the vote at City Hall.
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