Newtown's five-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) is neither a budget nor a formal resolution to bond for major projects. But it does represent a critical early-stage element in the process by which major town and school projects transition from wish list to the drawing board.Project Details ExpandCIP Follow ThroughThe Newtown Bee following the meeting that she would not support the resolution because of the same concerns she had with the auditorium process.

As such, town finance officials and local leaders have honed CIP documentation, building in an opportunity for those requesting funding to provide an exhaustive level of detail for others who have to administer bonding and spending for proposed major projects - often costing millions.

Since the latest charter revision has given the Legislative Council clearance to approve three times the amount of capital spending the panel used to have, and will ultimately shift the most expensive requests for project authorization to taxpayers themselves at every April budget referendum, the need for that exhaustive level of project detail is even more critical.

That issue about CIP detail came into crisp focus on January 4 as the Legislative Council considered two major requests for capital spending - one to supplement the already complex and somewhat controversial high school auditorium renovation, and the other to use surplus funds authorized for Fairfield Hills building demolition for other campus improvement projects.

The call for more CIP detail was led by Council Chair Mary Ann Jacob, as she and her colleagues weighed approving the pending CIP, and particularly projects in the 2017-2018 fiscal cycle whose bonding debt service will be built into next year's proposed municipal budget. By charter, all capital debt service is carried in the townside budget, even if projects benefit the school district like a proposed new boiler at Hawley School, or the auditorium renovation, which is already in process.

Documentation detail came under scrutiny after Ms Jacob dug into fine details on the auditorium project, including a timeline that brought school officials before the council last week asking for a final infusion of funds to complete necessary handicap access and life safety requirements, while correcting and improving aspects from ceiling acoustics to the auditorium seating.

That fast-tracked CIP request for $850,000 was eventually reduced or right-sized to $750,000. But not before school officials and Public Building & Site Commission (PBSC) Chair Robert Mitchell were peppered with tough questions about how a comparatively modest maintenance project ballooned into a sweeping $6 million renovation - including a supplemental package of construction and hardware expenses that never appeared in any CIP or subsequent bonding authorization requests.

School District Business Manager Ron Bienkowski explained that planned improvements to the auditorium started out as an internal maintenance project, and once architect proposals were completed, management for the rest of the process was transferred to the PBSC. Ms Jacob referred to a June 16, 2016, memo from Mr Mitchell that warned the authorized budget would not cover the scope of work detailed in design team requests.

Mr Mitchell replied that while a number of requested add-ons were included in budget documentation in the event contingency or surplus funds developed as the work progressed, they were not included as part of required and documented work under the previously approved $3.6 million budget cap. Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, who was on hand, said he met several months earlier with design team members and would not agree to adding on any expenses to the project that would drive it above and beyond the approved authorization.

However, basic escalation to deliver all the authorized improvements were forcing officials to come back and request what was estimated then to be $850,000 to finish the job. A subsequent detailed analysis of remaining work from a project management consultant that was delivered days before the council meeting trimmed that estimate back by about $100,000.

Even though council members saw the necessity to complete the base project and approved the authorization, Ms Jacob used the sequence of events to illustrate why initial capital requests needed to be expressly detailed. Councilman Ryan Knapp also reinforced that it was not just council prerogative to single out the auditorium project as an example, noting that the town code specified how items detailed in the original CIP request must follow through to project completion - with little flexibility to add-on extras or reallocate unused contingency funds or surplus monies to previously undocumented items.

Shortly after the CIP was approved, the issue came up again and caused the council to postpone voting on a resolution to shift just over $1 million in surplus funds originally bonded for Canaan House remediation and demolition for other campus infrastructure and streetscape improvements, including a public restroom facility.

Ms Jacob clarified to

"If it's not in the original documentation that leads to the specific project details in bonding authorizations eventually approved by voters, I can't support it," she said. "We're talking about taxpayer money, a lot of it in most cases, and it's critical that these details remain transparent to taxpayers through every step of the process from planning to completion."

The issues that came to light at the January 4 council meeting immediately prompted Town Finance Director Robert Tait to remind all town department heads the following morning about the need to be specific and completely detailed when sending CIP requests forward for consideration.

"The council's concerns were a good example of why department heads need to be very detailed, so I took the opportunity to remind them and review how we want to see these requests going forward," Mr Tait said.

The council plans to take up the Fairfield Hills spending request at its January 18 meeting.