State targeting school architects, builders it says wasted SCC funds Friday, July 21, 2006 • BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL • Star-Ledger Staff Shoddy work by designers and contractors has cost the state's cash-strapped school construction effort at least $75 million, and at torneys have begun legal work to recoup that money, the program's top officer said yesterday. "Realistically, some of the claims may not be collected in full," said Scott Weiner, transitional chief executive officer of the state Schools Construction Corp., set up six years ago to manage an overhaul of public school buildings. "But we're now at a stage of knowing what they are." The SCC this month filed its first claim against a contractor, seeking $3.6 million in damages from STV Architects in connection with problems with steel support beams at a new Mt. Vernon Elementary School being built in Irvington. David Allebach, attorney for the architecture firm, declined to comment on the state's claim yesterday, saying it is being reviewed. Weiner made his comments about the damage claims during a day-long meeting with dozens of representatives from the 31 needy communities where the SCC is responsible for constructing new schools under terms of a 1998 state Supreme Court order. The schools program has been in upheaval since last year, when officials revealed they had committed the entire $6 billion allo cated to projects in the 31 communities, stranding scores of promised schools on the drawing board. A series of reviews of the corporation found pervasive mismanage ment, waste and potential fraud, and a Star-Ledger analysis showed that the state program's schools cost, on average, 45 percent more than schools built without SCC involvement. Yesterday, Deane Evans, direc tor of the Center for Architecture and Building Science Research, said the SCC plans to rank future projects for funding based on each district's educational needs and ability to locate sites for proposed projects. Evans said the state plans to give priority to projects that reduce classroom overcrowding, expand pre-school offerings and address urgent repairs. "We all want to avoid the legacy of the past, when the priority was on how fast a project could get designed and which was the first in the door," said Weiner. Weiner said with that approach, the SCC ended up acquiring $200 million worth of property that it cannot build schools on because it now does not have enough money. Moving forward, Weiner said one way to help more schools get built would be legislation to allow school boards to incorporate schools into other development projects. The state's bid to recoup damages from the professional firms it has worked with was one strategy recommended by the state inspector general in a critical review of the corporation last year. In her initial report on the agency in April 2005, Inspector General Mary Jane Cooper noted that the SCC had paid change orders worth $22.9 million that were attributed to "design errors and omissions." Since starting work on schools, the SCC has paid out a total of $3.3 billion, including more than $300 million in payments to architects and another $295 million to the construction firms hired to manage the school work, SCC records show. Contractors building the new schools have collected more than $2 billion. © 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.