MISA Project Most Likely to Come to BET This Week

When the Board of Estimate and Taxation meets Monday evening for their April monthly meeting, there will be an item of interest on the agenda under New Business: the announcement of two special BET meetings this month.

Those meetings, most likely a BET Budget Committee meeting on Thursday, April 18 and a full BET Meeting the following Wednesday, April 24, will take up the interim appropriation request from the Greenwich Board of Education on the $42.4 million music instructional space and auditorium (MISA) project at Greenwich High School.

BET Chairman Michael Mason said that the request is now "in the hands of the BET and even if the BET says 'No' to the $42.4 million, it does not mean we would not be willing to talk about an alternative."

The Board of Education held a special meeting last week to discuss the educational specifications and the related budget for MISA. For 3 hours they debated and ultimately approved a proposal to increase the budgeted construction amount for the MISA project by $5.4 million to a total of $36.4 million. Combined with the completed planning and site work, the total cost of the project is now estimated at $42.4 million. The new figures were driven in large part by the receipt of final bids for the various components of the project.

The Cost of Desirability

Directly prior to the vote, board member Steve Anderson said, “It is a lot of money, but I think our role and responsibility is to go for what is educationally needed for our students." Teeing up the interim appropriation request, Anderson said "the BET needs to form their view on what the financing desires of our community is and ultimately the RTM needs to form their desires about what this town looks like and at what price."

Anderson explained that in the end it is about desirability. "We have heard our First Selectman talk about the desirability of living in the Town of Greenwich. Desirability has a cost to it. Is this cost worth it? What we are saying by voting yes is that ‘yes, it is worth it’ and I think it's worth it.”

Important Program Elements Part of What Is Desired

Before the vote, the board reviewed various options for reducing the project cost including removal of the orchestra pit and/or the balcony and re-using the existing auditorium for instructional space. While the savings for each of the changes would be between $600,000 to $1.2 million, it would result in the project not meeting the educational specifications as initially submitted.

Joe Ross, MISA Building Committee chairman, also explained that it could also result in the re-opening of bids which could risk coming in higher which would negate some of the savings. The current bids will be valid until early July 2013.

Sub-contractor states Performance Bond appears likely

Ty Tregellas, project manager from Turner Construction, also updated the board on the obtaining of a performance bond by the site engineering sub-contractor, a crucial step in their being able to commence work. Tregellas explained that the consultant hired by the bonding company had completed their review and had informed Tregellas that he was “comfortable with the bid," which was $4 to $5 million lower than the next lowest bid.

Conversations with the sub-contractor indicated that while a final “letter” had yet to be received, the process was headed in the “right direction" in obtaining the performance bond. The update was met with a loud and satisfied response of “Yes” by Adriana Ospina, the board member who sits on the building committee.

Securing the performance bond is critical since there is such a differential in bids, it would have a significant impact on the cost estimate of the project raising it well above $42.4 million.

What do the numbers look like in the future

After deciding not to pursue alternative strategies, the board started discussing the impact of MISA on the overall BoE budget. The Administration handed out a five year funding estimate that highlighted estimated Capital, Digital Learning and Operating Budget the period starting with the 2013-14 school year and ending in 2017-18 (see attached chart.)

The chart took a fairly simplistic approach to its forecast, utilizing the original CIP budget submission for this year adjusted for some shifts in the timing of spending, assumed that the original Digital Learning projection prepared by an outside consultant and projected a 2.5% year-over-year increase in the Operating Budget. With a total spending increase from $150.6 million in 2013-14 to an estimated $171.2 million in 2017-18, it represents that the BoE would be operating at the same level of town’s total spending for the same period.

Concern over the appropriateness of the estimates

Ospina flatly stated that she did not agree with the documents citing that it did not represent the board as being “diligent or fiscally responsible” and was in fact “incendiary." She reminded board members that the district had in fact met the current year’s BET budget guideline of a 2% increase.

Estimates still an important tool

Superintendent Dr. William McKersie explained that “from an administration point of view" the chart "may be somewhat controversial, but I think frankly from a management stand-point it’s a very important chart because the numbers that are shown show a very modest growth." He went on to state that “other higher education institutions that our children go to in our district celebrate literally when they keep their growth to 4%”.

He concluded that “what is helpful is a lot of care and though go into these numbers; at least worth looking at them and thinking about them over the long term, whether or not they are exact numbers. It would be irresponsible for the district not have these numbers out for us to consider.”

No scope creep or management issues in this project

Chairman Leslie Moriarty then summarized the situation as “the project cost is not what we want it to be. Five million of this cost is due to the environmental situation at the high school which wasn’t known and certainly wasn’t the high school’s or the students’ fault." She concluded that “delays have caused the price to go up. The scope of the project hasn’t changed since Day 1 and there hasn’t been a management issue that we have seen on this project that has caused this. It is an important asset to the town and to the school."

The BET will meet on in the Town Hall Meeting Room at 6:30 p.m. Monday.