Panel
wants SCC expelled
Agency key to P'burg High
project. No budget overruns found because "there were no
budgets."
Thursday, March 16, 206 • By Terrence Dopp •
The Express-Times
TRENTON | Looking to quell public outrage
over waste and mismanagement within the state Schools
Construction Corp., a handpicked team of advisers to Gov.
Jon Corzine has recommended abolishing the
agency.
In a report issued Wednesday by Corzine's
SCC Working Group, panel members recommended scrapping the
agency along with mandating any successor have stronger
management practices, better planning and focus solely on
managing school construction.
The agency was established in 2002 to
oversee a court-mandated $8.6 billion school construction
spree, primarily in poor and urban districts.
In August 2005, the SCC's board doled out
its final $1.4 billion to 25 poor and urban districts to
cover 59 projects, two years ahead of schedule and with
almost $300 million in promised aid on hold due to lack of
funding.
"The problem isn't that budgets were
exceeded. The problem is that there were no budgets," said
Scott Weiner, SCC special counsel and interim CEO. "The
issue was management. The future of the whole project, quite
frankly, was put at risk."
Locally, Phillipsburg, the area's only
Abbott district, is awaiting full state funding to complete
a new high school. The school carries a total price tag of
$88 million, which, like all Abbott projects, will be
covered using income taxes derived from residents
statewide.
The SCC is juggling $3 billion worth of
work, and state estimates are that $13 billion more
remains.
Working group members said current
projects would be transitioned in the new agency.
Weiner said past SCC efforts were focused
primarily on building as many schools as possible in a short
timeframe. The result, he added, was common cost overruns
and waste.
Under its current charter, the SCC is a
subsidiary of the Economic Development Authority. The plan,
Weiner and others said, calls for the SCC to be removed from
EDA oversight and placed within the state Treasury
Department, affording Corzine more direct control in
appointing and firing board members.
That step would require legislative
approval. But officials said other proposals -- such as
hiring a new chief executive officer, changing guidelines
and altering how the money is doled out -- can be
accomplished administratively.
The report also mandates that poor
districts, rather than the SCC, acquire land.
"Our focus at the board level, as at the
working group level, is on the future. Making sure this
organization is fixed before we can go forward," said Barry
Zubrow, SCC chairman. An aide to Corzine said he had been
briefed on the subject but would not make a public statement
until at least until Thursday.
"The wheels of reform are in motion at
the SCC, and the governor is pleased to have this report,
and he will review it thoroughly," said Anthony
Coley.
Lawmakers from both parties, smarting
from criticism over the SCC fiasco, said they plan to
support it when it goes before the Legislature.
"It makes a very serious charge, and I
suspect we'll agree that, that the SCC should be abolished,"
said Sen. Minority Leader Leonard Lance, R-Hunterdon/Warren,
a frequent critic of the agency.
"It needs to be addressed before we can
appropriate any more money," Lance said. "It needs to be
done in the context of greater accountability."
The state's 31 poorest districts -- known
as Abbott schools because of the Supreme Court decisions
that created them -- were to receive $6 billion of the
money. In those districts, 30 projects have been completed
so far and another 43 are currently under
construction.
Meanwhile, $2 billion of the money would
go to offsetting voter approved school expansions in the
remaining 550-plus middle- and upper-class school systems.
In those communities, the SCC money would be used to
subsidize up to 40 percent of the projects.
Terrence Dopp is Trenton correspondent for The
Express-Times. He can be reached at 609-292-5154 or by
e-mail at tdopp@sjnewsco.com.
© 2006 The Express-Times. Used with
permission.
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