Clearly angry, both Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani have both launched separate investigations to determine why the Board of Educations $7 billion program is running nearly 25 percent over budget, with nearly a $1.7 billion shortfall. Joining in, City Council Speaker Peter Vallone has also called for joining hearings of the Councils Finance and Education Committees on July 10, to learn the reasons for the cost overruns.
A steaming Queens BP Shulman had already called the potential problem "outrageous."
Responsibility for the cost overruns will be hard to track down, because school construction in New York City is a complex process:
The Board of Education prepares the Citys School Capital Construction Plan.
The School Construction Authority (SCA) is responsible or the design, construction and reconstruction of the Citys educational facilities.
The Mayor, Governor and the Board of Education all have representatives on the SCA.
The city Council appropriates funding for construction of the schools.
This intermingling of authority could lead to intensive finger-pointing by members of the Board and the SCA in an effort to shift blame for the soaring costs and projected delays, as the badly damaged five-year budget enters into its third year.
Anticipating these tactics, Vallone declared, "When the City Council negotiated the city budget earlier this year, the Board of Education and School Construction Authority never mentioned a possible deficit. We expect the Citys agencies to be truthful and open. How can we solve our school overcrowding problem if we are given misleading budget estimates?"
Council Education Chairwoman Priscilla Wooten (D-Brooklyn) was more direct when she declared, "These cost overruns are a classic example of why the Board of Education should be re-organized."
Buried in the Mayors "State of the City" report, last January, was an allocation of additional funds designed to facilitate the Citys announced construction schedule of 100 additional seats per month for Queens students. this increased funding placed an estimated 40 percent of all queens projects onto an accelerated track during the next 24 months.
With the strong backing of Shulman, the speed-up plan called for the construction of six new schools in school districts 24, 26, and 29, containing over 4,000 seats. It also called for the equally speedy expansion of five existing schools to provide an additional 1,740 seats in districts 24 and 27 ensuring the speedier use of more than 5,800 school seats.
According to Shulmans "State of the Borough" report, last january, while the citys overall plan proposes to provide 55,000 seats for Queens students, the boroughs beleaguered students still face a 22,000 seat shortage.
"The overcrowding crisis in Queens is so severe," declared Shulman, "that these additions to the Queens educational infrastructure will only lessen overcrowding, not eliminate it."
Last year a concerned shulman revealed that she had established a "war room" to not only monitor the progress of the Citys construction program, but school additions and renovations as well. Monthly progress meetings are often conducted with the Board of Education and SCA.
Terri Thomson, Queens member of the Board of Education, said that key to solving the potential fiscal shortfall will be the Boards own scheduled audit, to ensure the cost effectiveness of the Citys $7 billion, five-year, capital construction plan.
Thomson said that triggering the potential $1.6 billion shortfall were escalating construction costs. Contractors bids on new projects are already 35 percent higher than the budget, and rehabilitation projects are as much as 18 percent higher.
Although she predicted that existing schedules would be followed, Thomson said that the increased construction costs may necessitate the board members advocate additional funding.
Emphasizing local civic concern, a study released last january by Public Advocate Mark Green, claimed that three quarters of Queens 174 elementary schools are operating at more than 99 percent of their capacities.
Currently, 13 schools are now under construction in Queens. half of the schools now being built are scheduled to be opened either this fall or the next, with the balance to be completed in the fall of 2003. In addition, ten major expansions of existing schools are now under way and are expected to be finished within this same period.
Also expected to be affected are the Board of Educations previously announced plans for ten high schools to be built in Queens, that will accommodate 8,700 students
