After ‘Detailed Analysis’—

 Llodra Will Authorize Middle School Roof Project

By John Voket

The Newtown Middle School roof replacement will proceed, according to First Selectman Pat Llodra who told The Bee Thursday that she will support contracting the project with a single add-on option to accommodate necessary ceiling and electrical infrastructure replacement just below the new roof.

Mrs Llodra said she will explain her decision during a special meeting of the Board of Finance that was set for 6:30 pm Thursday, June 23, after the print edition of the paper went to press this week. Other members of the Board of Selectmen, the Public Building and Site Commission, and the Legislative Council were invited to attend that meeting.

“I’ve done a complete analysis of three options related to the project,” Mrs Llodra said. “And I am convinced now that it is in the best interest of the town to go forward with the roof replacement and the one alternate option for ceiling and electrical work.”

The fist selectman said she will present the same three scenarios she and Finance Director Robert Tait developed and analyzed, which led to her decision to authorize contracting Silktown Roofing to begin work immediately. Mrs Llodra said despite a slight delay in staging the project, contractors are still on schedule to complete the work by the time the next middle school session begins in September.

That delay occurred after a package of alternates were presented to local officials by the architect on the project, who, along with public building commissioners, recommended adding nearly $1 million in HVAC improvements, and sought an increase in funding to complete those add-ons.

Around the same time as the new alternates were revealed, decisionmaking was further complicated when Finance Board Chairman John Kortze questioned what would happen regarding state reimbursement for the project if a school facility review committee, which is still in process, eventually recommended repurposing or closing the middle school at some point in the future.

After reaching the state Department of Education School Facilities Unit, Mrs Llodra learned that the town would be responsible for repaying up to the full amount of an anticipated $900,000-plus reimbursement if the school was closed or was repurposed for noneducational use within 20 years of the state grant being awarded.

New Information Presented

As a result of that new information, and the new financial exposure to the town, the first selectman put the brakes on signing the contract until she could research the options and conduct a meeting with all officials involved to review the ramifications of moving forward as planned with just the roof project, delaying the project one year, or changing the specifications of the project to reduce the cost — which would also disqualify the town for state funding.

“We don’t like the risk of possibly having to pay grant money back to the state, but the options are so limited, the wisest course of action is to award the bid, do the base bid work with option nine [the electrical and ceiling work], but no HVAC,” Mrs Llodra said.

She said the base bid plus the alternate will cost $700,000 more than the town already bonded for the roof replacement, but since the bond authorization provided substantially more flexibility, the town could go back and borrow more to make up the deficit.

The down side to that action will mean an additional $700,000 in planned future debt service will have to be removed from the local Capital Improvement Plan, affecting another proposed capital project already on track for full funding. Currently, the CIP is factored going out five fiscal years, and takes into account projected local budgets for each of those years and the relationship to a borrowing cap the town maintains by policy to better protect and enhance its overall municipal bond rating.

According to Mr Tait, the base bid of approximately $2.9 million, plus the $94,000 for the electrical and ceiling alternate; $302,000 allocated for contingencies, plus fees, brings the gross estimated cost for the project to about $3.6 million. The town anticipates a state reimbursement to equal about $960,000.

If the middle school was eventually closed or repurposed, the repayment to the state would begin the year after such an occurrence and would be amortized at the rate of about $50,000 per year for each remaining year of the 20-year grant fulfillment period.

Analysis Detailed

The analysis done by Mr Tait and Mrs Llodra illustrates the amount of payback of the grant if the building is closed in as little as one year, and projected out in increments up to 15 years. The same timeframes are then used to illustrate the costs, factoring anticipated cost escalation, if the project is delayed one year.

The analysis also assumes costs if the town delays one year and also scales back and redesigns the project factoring in a lesser roof pitch, which would disqualify the town from state reimbursement, but would also reduce the overall cost. Based on the analysis, the cost to proceed this year as planned would only cost about $35,000 more than delaying and rescoping the project and then losing the state grant.

Mr Tait said delaying the project one year and proceeding as designed would be the least attractive option from an overall perspective, because it would end up costing almost a quarter-million dollars more, and would necessitate paying for additional temporary patching to get through this winter, as well as additional architect fees.

While the project will apparently accommodate installation and/or replacement of any of the HVAC system, Mrs Llodra remains concerned that strict language in the original bond resolution will not permit the town to use any bonded money if any existing HVAC units atop the middle school roof are permanently damaged or disabled during the reroofing project.

So she planned to revisit her request to the finance board during its regular meeting that was at 7:30 on June 23, for a slight adjustment to the resolution language that would permit using some of the bonding in the event existing HVAC equipment was broken or compromised.

“If a unit falls apart in the process of being removed or reinstalled, we have no authority to use the roof bond to repair or replace it,” Mrs Llodra said. “So if the board of finance chooses to not change the resolution language and one or more of the rooftop units is damaged, we will just have to cap that platform and not replace it.”