Panel Will Study Consolidation Of Town & School Maintenance

By John Voket

The possibility of creating a central maintenance unit handling all town and school projects may be an idea whose time has come. Discussions over the course of several recent Legislative Council meetings, prompted by District 3 Councilman Daniel Amaral, has finally resulted in a charge to determine the feasibility and possible economic benefits of such an agency.

First Selectman Joe Borst, Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson and Mr Amaral have been tapped to initiate exploration of the proposal.

Discussion of the proposal came during the July 2 council meeting after Mr Borst reported that the town could not arbitrarily create such a department including school district facilities. The first selectman, relating a town attorney’s finding, said that such an initiative would not be legally permissible without the school district agreeing to participate.

Education subcommittee chair Patricia Llodra concurred that the Board of Education has the legal right to both deliberate and determine the best way to take care of its facilities.

“There’s no animosity here,” Ms Llodra said of the proposal. “The best decision will percolate from those discussions.”

Saying she could not speak for the school board, Ms Llodra said that she was, however, told directly by district business manager Ronald Bienkowski that he would entertain participating in such an arrangement. Mr Bienkowski was not in attendance at the meeting, but Dr Robinson told the council Ms Llodra’s information was accurate.

A call to Mr Bienkowski to confirm that information was not immediately returned as the newspaper went to press Thursday morning.

Under questioning from council chairman Will Rodgers, Ms Robinson said the district would be happy to participate, and provide information for the feasibility study. But she said the district could not prioritize such a proposal if it was charged as the lead agency to work on the study.

At that point Mr Borst asked the chairman to clarify if the council or a town administrative body would take the lead.

“The gear that makes it turn is a salaried official of the town,” Mr Rodgers answered. Ms Llodra said she supported that idea.

“It should be the administration [leading the study],” Ms Llodra said. “Relations between town agencies and the school [district] are too complex. It would require staff that would be best led by the administration.”

Councilman Joseph DiCandido said initial discussions should center around the effectiveness and economy of the present system, and the pros and cons of moving forward considering a centralized maintenance unit.

Mr Rodgers said Mr Amaral’s idea has merit at this time.

“Danny assumes there will be economies of scale by combining services,” Mr Rodgers said. “I don’t know who will be [ultimately] responsible, but a committee should provide us with an initial read as to whether or not it makes sense.”

Mr Borst added that the idea should only be implemented if it is in the best interest of the town.

Councilman Gary Davis supported the idea of having Mr Amaral or other council representatives acting as liaisons to the feasibility committee.

“My concern is leaving it [exclusively] up to the administration — someone may have a vested interest to see or not see economies of scale,” Mr Davis said.

As a point of history, Ms Llodra said she believed the idea for such an agency had been explored two or three times in the past, beginning under the administration of former first selectman Jack Rosenthal. She said according to “anecdotal information” she received in recent months, each time it was determined that cooperative arrangements between the town and school departments that handled building and facility maintenance were being utilized to their maximum capacity.

Mr Rodgers said that if that were still the case, he would prefer to see it voiced after all the current information was properly reviewed.

“That way we could do a better job at pointing out what those efficiencies are…so there are not concerns like those expressed by Danny,” Mr Rodgers said of Mr Amaral.

Over the course of recent council meetings, Mr Amaral said he had a growing concern that town and school maintenance workers might not be achieving maximum efficiency during the normal work days. The councilman said that any work that was not completed during normal business hours created a need to keep maintenance staff on at overtime wages, or worse, forced the town to subcontract outside workers to complete maintenance and repair jobs — both significantly driving up the cost to taxpayers.

Councilman Jeff Capeci asked if there would be a written charge to the feasibility committee. Mr Rodgers said that the charge could be formulated between Mr Borst and Dr Robinson.

Municipal Finance Director Robert Tate said his office might be able to help determine whether the current system offers the most economic results by creating a zero-based budget model that would take into account all town and school maintenance costs along with all projects outsourced to subcontractors.

Mr Tate said it would be fairly easy to create such a model as various departments compiled their annual budgets, because the department heads would have to include maintenance and subcontractor budget lines in their annual proposal.