Panel Provided Little Detail but Sought Approval for Nearly $1 Billion in Repairs and Renovations
By Theola Labbé and David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 9, 2007
The D.C. Council has delayed approval of nearly $1 billion in contracts to repair and modernize schools and sent a letter chastising the superintendent and school board president for submitting contracts with no itemized description of projects or payments.
The letter, sent Monday to Superintendent Clifford B. Janey and Board of Education President Robert C. Bobb, noted that more than 30 contracts appeared the week after the council was asked to approve a 10-year, $2.3 billion modernization plan and before the council could have a hearing.
"We are shocked and disturbed," said the letter signed by eight of the 11 council members, including Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D). The letter added: "This is astounding."
Gray said yesterday that the contracts offered no explanation of which schools the work was related to, and he said they arrived "just like it was a regular memo."
Last night, Bobb said he sent a response letter to Gray yesterday.
"This isn't unusual," he said. "Other agencies send over contracts for funds to be authorized in advance."
The tempest over the contracts comes as the council prepares to vote next month on Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's proposal to take control of the schools and reduce the power of the board.
Since Fenty took office in January, Janey has been rushing to spend money as part of an emergency "blitz" repair program -- $75 million to fix restrooms and water fountains and $900,000 to repair heating systems during last month's cold snap.
Aides to Fenty said they hope the council will hold off approving the contracts because the mayor would like to review them if he is awarded control of the system.
Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who supports Fenty's takeover plan and signed the letter, said he agreed that the council should wait.
The school system "sent over all these contracts with no explanation or advance warning," Evans said. "I want to find out what is all this stuff. . . . It's unprecedented. Never in all my years here has this much money in contracts come over with no specifics about how it would be spent."
Evans suggested that the school system seemed to be moving faster in reaction to Fenty's takeover plan.
"When you light a fire under them and threaten to abolish them, they spring to life all of a sudden," he said.
Fenty's takeover proposal calls for the creation of an independent construction authority, appointed by Fenty, to carry out the modernization.
In September, Janey announced a 15-year timetable for renovating schools. But after parental complaints that 15 years was too long, plus a push from Bobb to raise students' achievement scores more quickly, the board approved Janey's revised plan in January to complete the work in 10 years.
The modernization plan reached the council Feb. 22 -- more than seven months after the June 30 deadline. The council immediately scheduled a hearing for yesterday, but Gray said the contracts totaling nearly $1 billion started arriving days before the hearing.
As the council held that hearing, Gray said Janey's plan to speed modernization of dilapidated school buildings would create a funding shortfall of at least $500 million. The shortage would result from completing the construction in 10 years instead of 15, he said.
Gray vowed not to approve any school contracts and asked school and finance officials to submit a more detailed financial analysis on the shortfall with the accelerated construction timetable.
"Why would you send over contracts knowing that we had no money to pay for them?" Gray said.
District finance officials familiar with the school system's capital budget confirmed the shortfall during yesterday's hearing.
"Yes, those gaps are right," said James Spaulding, who directs capital improvement planning in the office of the chief financial officer.
"How do we address this issue?" asked Gray, speaking to Spaulding and a panel that included school system facilities director Cornell Brown, business officer Abdusalam Omer and District IV school board member William Lockridge.
"We don't have the solution yet," Spaulding said.
Omer said in an interview that the school system was attempting to use a type of contract procedure commonly used in the industry to expedite construction work.
Rather than going to the council for every contract over $1 million, as is required by city law, school system officials were trying to get advance approval to spend tens of millions of dollars, Omer said.
"This is giving [the school system] authority to spend the money," Omer said, adding that the timing of the contracts was not related to the coming vote on the Fenty takeover proposal. "It streamlines the process so that you don't have to go back [to the council] for specific projects."
Omer blamed the council's reaction on the school system's failure to notify members about the procedure. "I'm new," said Omer, who has been on the job about a month. "There was a breakdown in communications -- that's for sure."
Staff writer V. Dion Haynes contributed to this report.
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