Getting Out Of The $6 Million Hole

The Newtown High School expansion project this week started to limp back to the public for another vote, possibly in early October, after sustaining a severe blow from an increasingly unpredictable economy. The $38.8 million appropriation for the project, approved in an April 22 referendum, came up $6 million short when bids were opened at the end of July, catching the Board of Education, its architects and consultants, and town finance officials by surprise. It turns out that at the same time contractors were opening bid specs for the project, they were opening grossly inflated bills for diesel fuel, steel, copper, and other building materials they would be needing for that project. Building materials, according to the preconstruction managers working for the school board, rose 40 percent during the bidding period. The rapidly rising tide of costs convinced several of the competing contractors to protect themselves against future increases with even higher bids.

That is the explanation of why the high school expansion fell into a $6 million hole. The challenge of getting it out of that hole will require some honest assessments and good-faith bargaining over what is still possible now that time and perhaps some state money has been lost. There will be the inevitable finger pointing and flank covering, particularly now that construction bids for a smaller and dissimilar town hall project at Fairfield Hills have come in significantly lower than expected. A direct comparison of the two is unfair, however. The latter is essentially the renovation of an existing building rather than new construction, and its costs are mostly for labor rather than raw materials. That is the main reason why the town hall project escaped the unfortunate fate of the high school expansion.

The Board of Finance this week failed to formally recommend a requested $6,045,000 supplemental appropriation that would allow the school board to move ahead with as much of the original plan as it can given the time and possibly state money that may have been lost. The finance board’s split vote reflects the town’s fractured confidence in the original proposal after its awkward false start. We expect similar uncertainty to surface when the measure comes before the Legislative Council next week. That uncertainty, however, is not sufficient reason for the council to block a town vote on the supplemental appropriation. Choosing whether to resurrect the original high school expansion plan or to drive a stake through its heart and start again will be a fateful decision for the town — a decision that could have significant consequences for the thousands of students to attend Newtown High School in the coming decade.

The question at this point is not so much “Why did this happen?” The answers to that one are likely to stir up blame and recrimination, which will only poison the well of cooperation needed to answer the more important question: “Where do we go from here?” Voters will need a credible and rational answer before they dig down deep for another $6 million.