February 9, 2014
By Mickey Friedman
I went to listen on Wednesday night, and many spoke about the Monument Mountain High School renovation project.
Clearly, the Superintendent, School Committee and teachers are committed to providing the best education they can for their students.
It’s also clear how overwhelmed some citizens are by the scope and cost of the project.
And so we have a 56 million dollar problem.
I appreciated the educators. If you’re revamping a 44-year old building, why not build better classrooms, a library, media center, and indoor greenhouse. Especially if for every dollar we spend the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) offers 47 cents.
If you can imagine state taxpayers as them, not us, a 56 million dollar problem magically becomes a 30 million dollar problem.
Many suggestions. Increase the fees other school districts pay to choice-in their students to Monument. Because Great Barrington pays 70% of the costs, spread the financial burden more equitably with Stockbridge and West Stockbridge. Consolidate with the Southern Berkshire Regional School District.
Some wanted to know why we couldn’t just repair the roof and replace the boiler, fix the things that most immediately need fixing. And postpone the new stuff.
And many questioned the system itself. Whether there was a vigorous enough attempt to contain costs and get competitive bids.
I suspect many folks left confused. Because, unfortunately, this is a confusing process. The MSBA program, like so many government and quasi-government programs is about giving up local control for government money. It’s odd but something happens when 535 Representatives and 100 Senators decide how to spend our federal tax money. When 160 State Reps and 40 State Senators allocate our Commonwealth taxes. When their innumerable bureaucracies control and divvy it up. It’s mind-bogglingly frustrating and inefficient. With politics, influence peddling and incompetence abounding. And there’s almost nothing an ordinary taxpayer can do about it.
For example, we were told that the MSBA generated the figures for future enrollment, not the district.
Then there’s the publicly available two-page budget. If you want to know what a new stove costs for the new kitchen classroom, forget about it. Maybe the architects have a detailed budget with the real costs for everything that needs to be fixed, for all the new things we’ll add, but I can’t find it on the High School Project website.
Though I did discover that Symmes Maini & McKee Associates would make 4 million dollars for architectural services. Maybe this makes sense in a world where Jacoby Ellsbury is paid 22 million dollars a year to play baseball. Where 85 people have more money than half the world’s population.
But we’re renovating a public high school in Berkshire County, where our median household income is $47,513. Where 21% of our children under the age of eighteen live in poverty.
The Commonwealth requires that all public construction projects over 100,000 dollars be supervised by an Owner’s Project Manager (OPM). And the MSBA and Monument team chose Strategic Building Solutions. While their representative seems competent and committed, SBS will make close to 2.5 million dollars to oversee the entire project.
While the School Building Committee encourages local bids, we were told there are several factors that make hiring them difficult. That jobs above 100,000 dollars require certification by the Massachusetts Division of Capital and Asset Management & Management (DCAMM). That there aren’t local contractors with the experience or expertise to perform the roofing job.
But can’t large local companies like David J. Tierney, Jr. Inc., and Allegrone Construction meet this standard and provide much of this work?
The two boilers and the HVAC systems were installed in 1968, with a line-item replacement cost of more than 5 million dollars. And the budget adds 4.3 million dollars for roofing. But wasn’t the Monument roof completely replaced in 1998? Is this 4.3 million for the construction of the new section of roof? Has the 1998 roof lasted only fifteen years?
There is some good news. The 2008 MSBA feasibility study “confirmed that the building was structurally sound and in good condition.” Designed for 790 students, only 571 attend.
While the front walkways have been made handicapped-accessible there is ADA work to be done with doors, the science labs, the greenhouse, and bathrooms.
And despite what many think, the 2011 manual, “Designing and Constructing Public Facilities,” reveals that Massachusetts’ law permits in-house and volunteer work for design and construction by those who possess “the requisite expertise and knowledge.”
While there might be insurance and bonding issues to resolve, we could save money if we used qualified school personnel and community members for some of these critical renovations.
The School Committee planned the best possible high school they could imagine for 56 million dollars. Now that the taxpayers have said no, we need to design the best possible high school we can afford. To craft a compromise the voters will support.
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To learn more:
Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA)
http://www.massschoolbuildings.org/
MSBA projected enrollment:
http://www.massschoolbuildings.org/sites/default/files/edit-contentfile/2012%20Board%20Meetings/November%2014,%202012/Berkshire%20Hills%20-%20PS%20Memo.pdf
Symmes Maini & McKee Associates
http://www.smma.com/
Strategic Building Solutions:
http://www.go-sbs.com
2012 Federal Census income data:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/25/25003.html
Monument roof:
Page 3 http://www.mmrhsproject.org/files/_fKIg3_/c76d81239a55f7fa3745a49013852ec4/SOI.pdf
Designing and Constructing Public Facilities
Legal Requirements Recommended Practices
Sources of Assistance
Pages 3,4
http://www.mass.gov/ig/publications/manuals/dcmanual.pdf