August 13, 2008

Taxpayers could get clobbered by school mistake

A mistake by the Board of Education could wind up socking city taxpayers for about $700,000 that the state would typically pay toward the cost of two school roof projects, city officials said Wednesday.
“It’s human error,” said Dale Clift, the city attorney who raised the issue this week after the failure to follow normal procedures came to light.
For school projects, the state normally covers perhaps 70 percent of the tab, but only if the city submits the necessary paperwork ahead of time.
Somehow, the paperwork wasn’t sent in by school administrators for an $880,000 roof replacement at Memorial Boulevard School or a roof repair at Jennings School at may cost $300,000, officials said.
That means that unless the state legislature or the State Education Department takes steps to waive the normal rules, city taxpayers would end up shelling out the entire cost for the two projects.
“The city is on the hook for the whole, 100 percent project,” city Councilor Ken Cockayne said, unless special legislation is enacted next winter
“We’re talking close to a million dollars if the state opts out of it,” Mayor Art Ward said.
The mayor said it would be “absolutely devastating” to the city’s budget if the state doesn’t come through with the cash in the end.
Ward said the city has no choice except to push ahead with the work because officials “have to look for the safety of the students” above all.
City Councilor Frank Nicastro, who is also a state representative, said that he “will do everything in my power to see that we get reimbursed” for the money.
But, he said, it’s too bad that proper procedures weren’t followed all along so the city wouldn’t be in such a precarious situation.
Nicastro said he doesn’t want to see taxpayers “eat a million plus dollars” because education officials failed to follow the proper procedures.
“I think that’s dreadfully wrong,” Nicastro said.
Ward said he understands these kind of mistakes have happened in the state before “and the state has honored the obligation.”
“It’s probably 95 percent we’re going to get the money,” said city Councilor Mike Rimcoski.
But, he said, if the state doesn’t come through, he’ll seek to have educators pay the lost cash out of the allocation already made for schools. Rimcoski said taxpayers in town shouldn’t have to cough up extra when they’re already struggling.
Ward said he’s going to try to ensure that similar mistakes don’t happen again.
“I definitely think that provisions should be made” to prevent it from occurring, he said, perhaps by adopting a checklist that officials can follow on any major project that ensures that necessary filings are done at the correct time.
“It is a concern,” Clift said. But, he said, there are procedures in place that were not followed.
“There needs to be accountability,” Cockayne said, adding that the paperwork screw-up demonstrates once more why the city needs a chief operating officer at the helm who can make sure procedures are followed.
Cockayne acknowledged, though, that the error was made by the Board of Education, not anyone at City Hall.
He said, though, that he doesn’t understand why the roof work on Jennings school has already begun even though there is no signed contract in place for anybody to do the job. That is a serious mistake as well, Cockayne said.
Nicastro said that he’s concerned that the Board of Education isn’t on top of other projects, too.
“It makes me question what the heck is going on,” Nicastro said.
He said that the $120 million plan for two new schools may also be lacking in its paperwork and background.
Nicastro said that “we don’t get correct figures” on important issues from school officials and he’s worried that taxpayers could wind up in the hole even further if councilors aren’t careful.
“The council has to have more input with the money,” Rimcoski said.

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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want to thank the Democrat Party for taking more money from me in taxes and giving it the special interest groups that bankroll their political campaigns.

Anonymous said...

Yet another reason to be proud of Bristol Educators .

Maybe we need to hire another dozen or so administrators , since the excess we have is doing such a bang up job .

Anonymous said...

Wow - Quite a mistake to make! While it apparently was a mistake made within the Board of Ed. bureaucracy, it is an example of the kind of mistake a COO should catch on the city budget side.

Somebody at the Board of Ed. offices has got some "splaining to do" as the great Ricky Ricardo would have put it!

Anonymous said...

Maybe Stortz wasn't so bad after all.

Anonymous said...

COO would not cover BD ED

Anonymous said...

Maybe it should be taken out of the Board of Education employee's salaries, after all, it was THEIR mistake, not the city residents

Anonymous said...

And where was Glen Klocko on all this?

AnonymousWestconnStudent said...

"I want to thank the Democrat Party for taking more money from me in taxes and giving it the special interest groups that bankroll their political campaigns."

Democrat-ic party please.

"Wow - Quite a mistake to make! While it apparently was a mistake made within the Board of Ed. bureaucracy, it is an example of the kind of mistake a COO should catch on the city budget side."

And for his next trick the COO will turn water into wine.


The mistake is serious but this article reads more like the City Council trying to pounce on the Board of Ed since they can't really do much else.

Anonymous said...

Another day, another Dollar!!
$uch is the life as we know it in our Great little Town of Bristol.

Anonymous said...

The Board of Education has a school business administrator, an individual who should be overseeing this type of activity. The school business administrator is hired with higher credentials and required business administration experience than those called for in the current description of the proposed COO position.

A new school business adminstrator was hired as of July 1st. Perhaps this embarrassing error occured during the transition from the previous SBA to the new one.

So the argument that the COO would have been better suited to handle this situation is flawed.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Tom O'Brien

Anonymous said...

Sounds like Deja Vu all over again.

Very similar to what BDA and Jonathan Rosenthal did on the North Main street project: didn't get the necessary approvals as required.
Only when the state reviewed the request for reimbursement was the faux pas brought to the cities attenion.

The BDA and the Council then approved everything retroactively so that the city did not lose out.

So Education is not the only department that screws up.

Hopefully the city can mollify the state so the local taxpayer doesn't suffer.

Anonymous said...

I guess that if Hamzy can get $3,000,000.00 for Lake
Compounce, he should be able get us our $700,000.00

Piece of Cake!

Anonymous said...

Does Ward even have a clue?

Anonymous said...

Democrat-ic party please.
````````````````````

I joined the DEMOCRAT party back in the 60's ....

I understand that a lot has changed in my beloved party , BUT , if you insist on changing it's name , might I suggest a more appropriate name in keeping with the current leadership ??

COMMUNIST PARTY !!!!!

Anonymous said...

The more I think about this story the more I think everyone is playing "I Gotcha" How sad!

The Stae department of Education can't accept the form late and make the necessary correction for funding without legislative action? Now that sounds at face value a little ridiculous? Doesn't anyone at the SDE have any responsibility to check to see that the apporpriate forms and filings are submitted. Can't the Bristol BOE just fax in the form?

2, The media reported half a story while at the same time sensationalizing the headlines! Did they talk to the state department of education about this? How about the Bristol board of education? No comment from them? where is the fair and unbiased reporting?

3. How about these politicians just piling on! How about working together to resolve the situation! We will go nowhere as a community unless we all get on the bus and move in the same direction. As long as individuals continue to take advantage of situations like this to advance their own perceived importance or gain we will be mired in the mud! We need to move beyond political advantage and do what is best for the community-that is not what I observe. Everyone prefers to play "I Gotcha"

Anonymous said...

Whoever is responsible for this must be fired. This is not an "error". It is a failure to follow existing policy and procedure resulting in a possible loss of $1MM to the city. In addition this has caused numerous people to have to do unnecessary work in order to try to get the state to cover this. The hours of additional work that are going to be spent trying to get the state to cover this should have been spent working on other problems facing our state. Add the hourly rate of pay & benefits to the $1MM and see how much this is really costing the taxpayer.
Failure to take action against those responsible (all the way up the chain)will send a message that you don't have to follow produres in Bristol and there wouldn't be any repurcussions. Unfortunately that is already the perception of city employees & not taking action will further this perception.

Anonymous said...

Apparently we have set a precedent with Jonathan: unfortunate, but probably true.

Anonymous said...

Ward doesn't have a clue what is going on. As for the BOE - let them pay for the mistake out of their raises.

Anonymous said...

Just think of all the overtime this error is creating for our city workers!

Anonymous said...

Are we going to judge this issue on what we read in the paper, or are we going to wait until we get some official information.

Hope Artie doesn't let this one fester too!

Anonymous said...

The guy who forgot to file the paperwork has retired. Why should other Board of Ed employees have to pay for this? Are you paying attention?

Anonymous said...

The person who forgot to file the document has retired, and it fell through the cracks as his replacement was coming in. Accountability is fine, but this is just bloodlust..."we want someone's head, and we don't care whose!"

Anonymous said...

Dear 8/17/08 8:15PM poster,

Are you suggesting the supervisor should be let off the hook for not ensuring policy and procedures were followed especially at a time when their was a transition of employees under their supervision? That's like telling the police officer that you didn't know the speed limit! If your going to get behind the wheel it is your responsibility to know the how to drive.

Knowing an employee was leaving, a competent and qualified supervisor would have been checking the quality of that person's work. They would also meet with the retiree to review the status of their work. The competent supervisor would then meet with the replacement employee and bring them up to speed on the projects.
This would ensure nothing fell through the cracks before, during and after the transition period. Also, on a project involving such a large amount you would think a supervisor would review it to ensure accuracy. Where are the checks & balances?

This will be another example of failure to hold someone accountable for what they were hired to do IF no action is taken. Further it will be another signal to current employees that they will not be held accountable (which is already the perception). Imagine the increase in productivity and quality if people knew they were going to be held accountable for their action or inaction.

Anonymous said...

How come they don't try to hold Rosenthal accountable?

Anonymous said...

Because he is a fund raiser for Nicastro!

Anonymous said...

And Ward.