Finance Board Denies Increase For Hawley School HVAC Project

By John Voket

Following a lengthy discussion with contractors, consultants, and school officials Monday evening, the Board of Finance voted against a $2.1 million increase in funding for a proposed Hawley School heating and air conditioning project.

While the action will not necessarily derail every component of the proposal, members of the board who opposed the increase said they could not justify allocating 30 percent more to the project than taxpayers approved for related debt service in the last municipal budget.

During and after the meeting, members of the board including chairman John Kortze expressed dismay that even a principal with the firm contracted to perform the work could not precisely justify hundreds of thousands of dollars tacked on to the original project estimate after public bids were opened in late August.

Public bids opened August 23 resulted in only one bid for the testing portion of the project and four bids for construction work. On August 30 the Public Building and Site Commission recommended awarding contracts to Wing’s Testing & Balancing Company of Branford at $24,100 for the testing and balancing portion of the project, and Tomlinson Hawley Patterson of Trumbull for a total of $4,566,000 for the construction package.

However, on September 6 the Board of Education agreed to move forward requesting a total of $5.46 million for the work, adding additional monies in the event any additional or possible hidden costs related to the project surface.

Following the 4-2 vote which denied the project cost increase, Mr Kortze told fellow board members that he was loathe to raise the cost of the project so far above and beyond what voters approved in the last budget.

“It’s more than the taxpayers authorized us to spend,” Mr Kortze said. “At some point we knew this was going to happen, and we’re going to start having to make hard decisions about these projects.”

At the beginning of the meeting, Hawley Principal Jo-Ann Peters detailed the current scenario where students in the oldest part of the building had to work in hot classrooms with the windows closed because excessive noise from Church Hill Road traffic and a neighboring construction site was too disruptive if the windows were left open.

Ms Peters also clarified that the current system operated inconsistently leaving some classrooms so cold children were forced to wear heavy clothing, while other classrooms were so hot, windows had to be cracked open even during freezing cold winter days.

“Taxpayers monies are literally going out the window,” she told the board.

Then, Brian Wetzel and Doug Lajoie of Middletown-based Consulting Engineering Services, Inc, (CES) the design firm for the proposed improvements, attempted to justify the significant increase in project costs beyond the $3.3 million originally earmarked for the improvements.

“Construction costs have been out of control over the past few years,” Mr Lajoie told the finance board. “We’re seeing a shortage of steel, concrete and drywall, plus the costs of energy to manufacture and deliver the materials increasing rapidly. Trying to estimate construction costs has been a train wreck over the past few years.”

Finance board vice-chair James Gaston said he empathized with school officials saying his children attended Hawley School.

“There’s no doubt that this project is needed,” Mr Gaston said. “But if you want more money for the air conditioning there, there may be less money [made available] for a high school [project.]”

Mr Gaston went on to suggest that by coming before the finance board and pushing for an immediate vote on the Hawley project increase, the school board and administration was prioritizing that project before all others.

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal, who was attending the meeting, expressed concern over the fact that the town already paid CES to provide accurate cost estimates for the project.

“Newtown taxpayers paid a lot of money for your original report and a lot of money to do this project,” Mr Rosenthal said. “I’m concerned with the accuracy of these numbers.”

School board member David Nanvaty, who was in attendance, asked the finance board members to endorse the increase.

“Send the request to the Legislative Council and let them send it to the voters to decide if they will support this project,” Mr Nanavaty said. “I’m very conscious of [other] projects coming down the road and we’ll have to look closely at the costs — closer than we have looked in the past. We are doing the best we can by the students of Newtown.”

“You can’t do right by the students in an economic vacuum,” Mr Gaston replied.

After the vote denied the funding increase, school board chairman Elaine McClure requested a joint meeting between her board and the Board of Finance. That meeting is scheduled for 7 pm next Tuesday evening at the Reed School.

Following the meeting, Mr Kortze reiterated to The Bee that the finance board was available to the Board of Education to help them understand the town’s financial position in respect to future school spending, and the extent that the town’s bond rating could sustain additional major building projects. He also asked to reassure parents of Hawley students that Monday’s vote did not cancel the project altogether.

“This is not a rejection of the project,” Mr Kortze said. “We have to get our collective arms around where we stand financially as an entire town. Eighty percent of the debt we’ve incurred in recent years has been for school projects, and we have to remember that when we bond it, we have to pay for it.

“The Board of Finance doesn’t know how to run a school system, but we do know the numbers, and we know where Newtown stands financially,” Mr Kortze concluded. “We need this project, but we’re going to have to make some tough decisions. Other towns are doing it, and we are going to have to do it, too.”