Inspector
assails SCC leadership
Thursday, December 22, 2005 •
BY STEVE CHAMBERS • Star-Ledger
Staff
A key division within the New Jersey
Schools Construction Corp. provided such poor direction that
mid-level managers were left to their own devices in
overseeing multimillion-dollar projects, the state inspector
general said yesterday.
An interim report on the SCC's management
structure by Inspector General Mary Jane Cooper focused on
the ill-defined relationship between SCC managers and
private firms hired at great expense to oversee
construction. It also attacked a long-running problem with
contaminated building sites.
"Our review revealed the absence of an
overall coordinated plan to enable Design and Construction
to efficiently build schools," Cooper said, referring to a
division within the SCC.
An SCC spokesman said, and Cooper
confirmed, that many recommendations she has made in recent
months have been implemented.
"I can't stress enough that we've been
working with her office diligently to effect these reforms,"
said the spokesman, Kevin McElroy. "Many, if not all, of
them, are in place."
Cooper, while disagreeing that every
reform has been implemented, said progress is being made at
the SCC, which is overseeing $6 billion worth of school
construction in the state's poorest districts.
Cooper was asked by acting Gov. Richard
Codey in February to investigate the SCC, after a report in
The Sunday Star-Ledger documented cost overruns and
questionable spending practices. The corporation has
committed all its funds, with hundreds of projects left
undone.
Cooper said yesterday that she expects to
give a more complete report on the status of the SCC to
Codey within weeks, and said she has gotten good cooperation
from reformers brought into the agency by the acting
governor.
"The governor searched for the right
people, and we haven't found anything to indicate their
intention is anything but to build schools efficiently and
serve the taxpayers," Cooper said.
The future of the SCC remains uncertain,
however. Gov.-elect Jon Corzine hammered the SCC during the
campaign and vowed to make any changes necessary to ensure
it was building schools efficiently. Billions of dollars
more in state money may be needed to meet court mandates to
fix "crumbling and obsolescent" urban schools.
The interim report issued yesterday by
Cooper found that the Design and Construction Division of
the SCC was virtually rudderless, with project managers
receiving little direction in overseeing the private project
management firms, which include some of the largest
construction companies in the state.
Some SCC managers were too trusting of
the management firms and others had trouble getting the
firms to follow their direction, Cooper said.
SCC project officers "really need to have
an accurate description of what is expected of them," Cooper
said. "They need to know that they represent the taxpayers'
interests and that they have the authority to tell (the
management firms) what they can and cannot do."
McElroy, the SCC spokesman, said top
management changes, job descriptions and more specific
things -- like a new computer system that allows improved
tracking and budgeting of projects -- have helped clarify
relationships.
"We've addressed areas of accountability
and oversight," he said.
The organizational review was done at the
request of the SCC reformers, notably Alfred Koeppe, the
former Public Service Electric & Gas president whom
Codey brought in to chair the SCC board in May.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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