New Law Could Add Further Costs To NHS Expansion Project

By Eliza Hallabeck

Further costs could be added to the Newtown High School expansion project. The Superintendent’s Office and the Board of Education heard Monday that a new requirement by the United States Green Building Council could add up to 15 percent to the total cost.

Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson explained the news to the Board of Education during its meeting Tuesday, and the Legislative Council passed the project on for referendum Wednesday, September 17, with the full knowledge of the new possible costs.

“You know what they used to do in the Middle Ages to bearers of bad news, so have mercy,” Dr Robinson said as she began to explain the new complication at the Board of Education meeting Tuesday, September 16.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System will force all new school buildings submitted to the state in or after January 2009 to meet a Silver level of qualification. LEED was published in 1999 by the government to help guide new buildings to be environmentally efficient, but the new law was first proposed in 2007 and the policies to controlling it have not yet been written.

“Our question of course was, ‘Wait a minute; we spent all summer with you and went through every piece of our project line by line by line, making all the changes. All this time it was never mentioned?’” Dr Robinson said.

School District Business Manager Ronald Bienkowski said the law requires all new school buildings authorized by the state’s General Assembly after January 1, 2009, to meet qualification standards.

“The June 30 approval will be put on the list in December that goes to the General Assembly in January,” said Mr Bienkowski. “So we’re in the pipeline right now. We’re on the state Board of Education’s list, but it hasn’t been submitted to the General Assembly.”

Dr Robinson said the news was a blow to her Monday morning, because the project has already been set back.

“Where we seem to have gotten caught,” said Board Member Lillian Bittman, “is that we spent months with the building group up at the state level and it never came up, because the policies on how this law is going to be written had not been written yet, and still haven’t.”

Ms Bittman said the building group at the state level could not inform the school district about the law, because its job is to only work with the policies that have been written. Dealing with different departments of the government caused the confusion, according to Ms Bittman.

In effect, Dr Robinson said, meeting the qualifications for LEED will add up to 15 percent to the project.

There are items in the NHS Expansion Project that meet LEED qualifications already, but not all of it does.

“Here we are with bids that are $6 million over our April referendum, and now we’re talking about an additional amount of money,” said Dr Robinson.

In response to this information, school board Chair Elaine McClure and Ms Bittman put in calls to state representatives, and Dr Robinson and Mr Bienkowski composed a letter to be sent out to state representatives. In response to their phone calls, Representative John McKinney said he cleared his schedule in order to make it to the Legislative Council’s meeting Wednesday night, according to Dr Robinson. (See separate story.)

Dr Robinson said she spoke to Mr McKinney on Tuesday afternoon, and he walked her through different scenarios.

“Worst case scenario is our project goes through the next legislative session with the exception tagged on,” said Dr Robinson. She added that Mr McKinney told her that other schools in the area have had projects submitted in the same way.

“I felt so much more encouraged by 4 o’clock this afternoon in terms of dealing with this,” said Dr Robinson.

Ms McClure said other state representatives will be contacted during the next couple of days to help sort out getting the NHS expansion project passed without adding the extra 15 percent to the cost.

Dr Robinson said it may not be possible to pass the project without the extra costs, but the possibility of have an exemption added to the project to pass it made her hopeful. The further along the project is, the more likely the state is to let the project go through with exemptions, Dr Robinson said.

“And I spoke with Representative Wasserman last night,” said Ms McClure, “and she also wanted to get on this right away.”