Holyoke - At our last meeting on June 3, the City Council voted 12-3 to pass $9.4 million in additional bonding to pay for cost overruns to the proposed Holyoke High improvements. In 2004, the City Council approved with my support over $13 million in improvements for the high school. These proposed improvements were eligible for 90% reimbursement from the state.
Since that time in October 2005, the architect for the project, Alderman & MacNeish, went bankrupt and walked off with $773,000 of Holyoke's money. According to testimony to the Finance Committee,which I am a member, they reportedly destroyed all of the paid for work product and drawings. We were told by school officials that the city's law department is pursing legal action.
Since the initial estimates for the proposed improvements to the school in 2002, there has been nearly $6 million in inflationary costs. What was remarkable to me was the fact that if the School Department knew in October 2005 that Alderman & MacNeish went bankrupt why did they not regroup and keep the project moving forward with a new architect. It appears that there was a 2 year delay and this has resulted in sizable percentage of the inflationary costs. Luckily, to the School dept's credit they were able to secure $2.6 million of additional state assistance to help cover some of the $6 million in inflation.
Meanwhile, the Holyoke Gas&Electric Dept has announced that it is closing down its steam operations in the city and to the high school. This required an additional $1 million to install a new gas boiler system. The School Dept also requested an additional $500,000 for a fire alarm system upgrade and $100,000 for a new security system. While these are smaller ticket items, one does wonder why (with the exception of the boiler) they were not put in the original package to the state so the city could have been reimbursed. All of these new costs will receive 0% reimbursement because they are new add-ons.
Although not happy we are not getting any state reimbursement, I was supportive of these additions to the original bond authorization. What I could not justify to the taxpayers was the late addition of Air Conditioning at a cost of $2.5 million to the project. First of all, as an alumni of HHS Class of 1989 myself, I survived just fine as a student without air conditioning. For the forty years the school has been open, students have lived without air conditioning. Would it be nice? Sure. But I think what students would prefer is that more of their teachers, professional staff and custodians keep their jobs then to have air conditioning at a cost of $250,000+ for 20 years on the city's credit card. On June 15, over 107 school employees will be getting pink slips.
While the School Dept. is closing 3 schools and the City has $1 million deficit to start the fiscal year, now is not the time for a luxury that will be used for the Summer months when most students will not even be there. Moreover, I asked the Principal why some of the Summer programs could not be transferred to Dean which is one of the few buildings with central air, he stated "I suppose they could."
These are lean times and we, as a city, need to be make some sacrifices instead of just bonding our future generations to the hilt. The Mayor is already proposing his 9th $2 million Tax Increase in a Row. Moreover, if Air Conditioning was a priority then it should be placed in our capital plan and a request should have been made to the state for 80% reimbursement instead of us flipping the whole bill which we cannot afford. We already have over $20 million in requested bonding under consideration for other projects. Never once was AC at the high school mentioned before.
It is for this reason that I requested a bond package without the $2.5 million for AC, but the City Council voted for the $9.4 million anyway which will now increase the $1 million deficit in the Mayor's proposed budget by at least another $1 million to cover the bond payment.
Councilors Jourdain, Keane and Lisi voted against the $9.4 million bond request as presented.
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