Taxpayers wondering why school projects seemingly take forever need look no further than the state Education Department.
Thanks to a lack of staffing, the Education Department is currently taking an average of 22 weeks to review school building projects, according to an eye-opening story by Blank Slate Media’s Noah Manskar.
The 22 weeks, according to the education department, is actually an improvement from earlier this year when the department took on average 11 months to give approval for project management, architecture and engineering.
Currently, about 440 projects are awaiting reviews including work in seven North Shore school districts — East Williston, Great Neck, Manhasset, Mineola, Port Washington, Roslyn and Sewanhaka.
Projects awaiting final state approvals include repairs at eight Port Washington buildings, electrical work throughout the Great Neck district and $5 million worth of work at Mineola’s Hampton Street School.
The result of the delays is more than students spending another year in unairconditioned classrooms, cramped classrooms or shabby sports fields — although the impact of this is not be understated.
The delays are also costing schools districts and taxpayers money.
One architect told Herricks Superintendent Fino Celano construction that costs are rising as much as 10 percent annually, so administrators have accounted for cost increases in a $25 million construction plan for the district’s seven buildings. A 10 percent increase in that case comes to $2.5 million.
“There is no question that in many cases in a construction environment, the longer you wait to build, the more expensive it will be,” said Mitchell Pally, chief executive officer of the Long Island Builders Institute.
State education officials blame the delays on staff cutbacks.
The Education Department’s project review staff is about half what it was a decade ago, Carl Thurnau, the state’s director of facilities planning, told the New York State School Boards Association in an April 2015 article.
This leaves a department staff of nine to review about 2,000 projects annually, said Jeanne Beattie, the department spokeswoman.
The department has hired nine outside engineering firms to help with project reviews and is in the process of hiring more permanent staff using a combined $1.6 million boost in the past two state budgets.
The are several unanswered questions to this.
Why did the education department officials allow its staffing to fall to a level in which it could not handle the projects that came before them in a reasonable period, why has the education department taken so long to respond to the problem and where was the state Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Each school district awaiting approval for improvements is located within a state Senate and state Assembly district.
It is hard to believe no one was aware of the delays in districts getting approval for their projects — and the extra costs they were bearing as a result.
The same can be said for the governor.
We doubt that large campaign contributors would receive the same treatment.
