Last
of new-school fund is spent
59 projects make the final list,
stranding 200 others
Thursday, July 28, 2005 • BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL
• Star-Ledger Staff
New Jersey's $6 billion school
construction program ran dry yesterday as state officials
approved the last 59 projects they can bankroll, stalling
plans for more than 200 other schools and leaving dozens of
the state's neediest communities in limbo.
In cities like Newark, Perth Amboy and
Gloucester, the state had spent millions of dollars clearing
residents out of neighborhoods that now stand abandoned,
awaiting schools no longer scheduled to be built.
Yesterday's decisions capped a tumultuous
five months in which the state Schools Construction Corp.,
the agency set up to manage the program, has been buffeted
by evidence it squandered millions of dollars on exorbitant
professional fees and poor management.
Local officials who had envisioned a
renaissance of school construction are left hoping the
Legislature will find a new source of money, and wondering
how they will manage without the new buildings and additions
they were counting on.
"The problem here is you've had a massive
amount of mismanagement," said Assemblyman Joseph Vas
(D-Middlesex), the mayor of Perth Amboy, where a $100
million high school was shelved even as the city continues
evicting hundreds of tenants from a housing complex to make
way for it. "That means the children of Perth Amboy are
being asked to pay for their mismanagement."
The projects chosen for funding yesterday
were selected from among 266 that the state already had
begun working on. The final list of projects was developed
by a three-person panel consisting of representatives from
the Department of Education, the Attorney General's Office
and the governor's office. It was approved unanimously by
the SCC board.
"There were no easy decisions here," said
Al Koeppe, the former Public Service Electric & Gas
chief executive who was brought in to head the SCC after it
was rocked by allegations of waste and mismanagement earlier
this year. "These were all tough decisions."
The projects approved for construction
yesterday are slated to cost almost $1.5 billion. That would
consume virtually all that remains of the $6 billion
lawmakers approved for a court-ordered overhaul of obsolete
public school buildings in 31 communities.
In all, the plan approved yesterday would
deliver 31 new schools and make improvements to 28. Those
will be added to 39 new schools and 34 rehabilitation
projects already completed or in the works. In addition, the
SCC has spent $650 million on emergency health and safety
repairs to more than 400 school buildings.
But Koeppe acknowledged that falls far
short of the plans the state had when lawmakers set up the
construction program in response to a 1998 state Supreme
Court order to rebuild "crumbling and obsolescent" school
buildings in poor communities. Plans submitted by the
districts then called for about 170 new schools and
overhauls of 200 more.
Yesterday's decision was announced in a
Trenton conference room packed with residents and local
school officials.
"To say I'm a little discouraged this
morning is putting it mildly," Anna Taliaferro, a Paterson
woman with seven children and grandchildren in the Paterson
public schools, told the corporation's board. "I know our
kids have been rendered hopeless by a system that has
basically turned its back on them."
In Jersey City, only 100 new classroom
spaces have been added under the state program, while the
1998 plan called for 4,000.
And in Newark, yesterday's decision to
fund only three new schools means that just five of the 40
new schools that local officials say they need are slated to
be built.
"It's a crisis situation," said Ray
Lindgren, assistant to School Superintendent Marion Bolden.
"There will be a significant gap, at best, between these
schools that are getting built and those that need to get
built. We have buildings in serious disrepair."
Some of the places left off the list in
Newark involved horror stories -- places like Dewey Street
and Ridge Avenue, where most of the houses necessary to
complete new schools or massive additions have been
purchased and sit boarded-up.
Other suspended projects, such as a
replacement for Franklin Street Elementary School in the
North Ward, mean Newark students will continue to attend
classes in cramped, century-old buildings.
"This school is in deplorable condition,"
said Barbara Allen, a Newark resident who attended the SCC
meeting in Trenton. "No child should be sitting in those
classrooms."
David Sciarra, executive director of the
Newark-based Education Law Center, said the SCC board should
have included in its announcement a list of critical
projects that the state must consider funding
immediately.
"What's missing here is the sense of
urgency. Some of what was under way has disturbed
neighborhoods," said Sciarra, whose nonprofit group pressed
the court case for greater state funding of schools in New
Jersey's cities.
Vas said lawmakers need to approve
additional funding to rescue badly needed
projects.
Acting Gov. Richard Codey commended the
SCC board for its work in devising the final list of
projects, but he also lamented that, before recent reforms,
"there has been too much money wasted by the
agency."
"One thing should be clear to New Jersey
residents," Codey said. "There will be many more schools
built in our state in the future, and it will be up to the
next governor and the Legislature to find the necessary
funding."
Almost five years ago to the day, on July
19, 2000, Gov. Christie Whitman signed legislation
authorizing the state to borrow up to $8.6 billion to
bankroll a statewide public school building program. Of
that, $6 billion was earmarked for the 31 districts covered
by the 1998 court order, $100 million was set aside for
county vo-tech schools, and $2.5 billion was earmarked to
cover at least 40 percent of construction costs in wealthier
communities.
Today all that money is spoken for. And
with the state's public debt mounting -- and the cost of
repaying it due to soar by several hundred million dollars
next year -- lawmakers are wary of authorizing another
generous round of borrowing for the schools.
Legislation pending in Trenton would
authorize about $3 billion more in borrowing for the school
program, but it did not get a hearing before lawmakers left
for their pre-election recess last month.
Koeppe said lawmakers must acknowledge
that the Supreme Court order requiring them to upgrade the
decrepit public schools still stands, and must be
financed.
"There are additional chapters to be
written here," he said. "We're not closing the book
here."
Koeppe said the SCC board will decide
next month how to manage situations in which the design of
an unfunded new school is nearly complete, or a handful of
residents are stranded in a neighborhood that has been
partially acquired by the corporation.
In February, a Star-Ledger analysis
showed that the first six schools built by the SCC cost an
average 45 percent more per school than 19 schools built at
the same time without SCC involvement.
That spurred a review by the state
inspector general, which led to a suspension of new school
construction bids in March. In April, the inspector general
concluded the SCC was riddled with inefficiencies and lax
controls that opened the door to widespread waste and
abuse.
Since then the corporation has been
retooled. In addition to bringing on Koeppe as chairman, the
SCC scaled back its multimillion-dollar professional fees,
hired a chief financial officer and adopted plans to reuse
architectural designs and standardized features across
multiple school projects.
At yesterday's meeting, board members
continued the reforms, adopting tighter rules on land
acquisition and the approval of change orders.
Koeppe said the new controls will be
vital to ensure that the 59 latest projects are completed
under the budgets allocated to them.
Staff writers Steve Chambers, Julia Scott and Chandra
Hayslett contributed to this report. Dunstan McNichol covers
state government issues. He may be reached at
dmcnichol@starledger.com or (609) 989-0341.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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