State aid held up for Falls school
NIAGARA FALLS — Two years after board members thought the construction of Niagara Street School was complete, they learned some pieces are still waiting on state approval— and it will cost the district as much as $35,408 to fix.
With some opposition, a board majority last week authorized architectural firm EI Team to go back over project changes during the 2006 construction of the school at the request of state officials. The officials are requesting new information about change orders, or unplanned changes in scope, to the $26 million construction project, before the district can be reimbursed.
But some board members voiced concern over paying the EI Team more than $35,000 for work that should’ve already been done. EI Team was paid nearly $1.5 million for its work in 2006.
Board member Don King, who voted against the contract, said it amounted to paying twice for the change orders to be submitted to the state. He said in his 30 years on the board, there has never been a similar problem with change orders.
James Cancemi also voted against the contract, with members Carm Rotella and Chris Brown voting in favor but voicing frustration — an unusual occurrence in Niagara Falls, where the board mostly votes together.
“I thought we closed out the project, so I was very surprised we still had these change orders,” Rotella said. “Now because we were done with the project, we have to pay extra money to fix this.”
Large capital projects, like the school’s construction, will have most of their costs reimbursed if the state Education Department approves the work. For the $26 million Niagara Street School project, the state can return as much as $21.5 million to the district.
Acting Superintendent Cynthia Bianco said the questioned change orders did not put the district’s reimbursement in jeopardy, and the changes did not constitute large or expensive pieces of the construction.
The change orders in question are 13 of 111 the district submitted to the state Education Department. About half of those 111 have been approved and more could come back to the district for further information, which would require more payments to EI Team.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments