With its contingency funds quickly slipping away, how — and by who — Wilton’s new police headquarters construction project is being handled continues to create confusion, conflicting opinions and some degree of finger pointing.
There have been no detailed updates shared with the Board of Selectmen since its April 22 meeting, at which time Wilton’s Department of Public Works Assistant Director/Facilities Manager Jeff Pardo, who is serving as the town’s project manager, took both the architect and construction company to task for delays and other issues.
Despite strong urgings from Selectwoman Kim Healy on several occasions for First Selectman Toni Boucher to provide the BOS with, if not weekly, twice monthly updates on the $19-million project since then, Boucher has deflected discussion, provided several unfulfilled promises to put it on future BOS agendas, and also maintained that most of the discussions should be held behind closed doors in executive session.
At the Tuesday, June 3 BOS meeting, Boucher finally scheduled an update, but Healy, in particular, was neither placated nor pleased to learn that the project could potentially be heading over budget.
“We are supposed to have oversight and I don’t feel like this is oversight … We don’t see anything … We don’t even have the numbers,” Healy said.
“We have never defined what the expectations of this project management is going to look like from the Board of Selectmen perspective … Every other project of this caliber that we’ve done in our town — and I keep hearing this from people — Why is there not a construction committee?” Healy said. “Who’s managing this? Is the Board of Selectmen managing it, because it doesn’t really look that way.”
Healy said that in an email sent to the BOS, Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker identified Pardo as the sole project manager.
“According to Matt Knickerbocker’s response, we’ve given all the responsibilities to one person, Jeff, and that’s a lot for one person to do,” Healy said.
Boucher put the responsibility on the previous administration of First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice, who designated Chris Burney, Wilton’s former facilities director, as the project manager.
“I know that Lynne designated the project manager to a previous individual who Jeff has assumed the responsibility for, and that’s how it proceeded,” Boucher said.
Burney worked as Wilton’s Director of Public Works and Director of Facilities and Energy Management from 2015 until February 2022, when he transferred the DPW leadership to Frank Smeriglio. On July 1 of that same year, Burney transitioned to part-time status, with focus on major building projects.
Vanderslice’s term as first selectwoman ended Nov. 30, 2023 — 19 months ago — but as early as 2022 she had positioned Burney to be the link between her administration and Boucher’s as the lead on the Police HQ project.
Healy had commented at a previous BOS meeting (April 22) that some people still believed Burney to be in charge of the project, though he quietly left the town’s employ last year for reasons unknown shortly after Boucher took office.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: GOOD Morning Wilton has reached out to Vanderslice and Burney for response to comments made during this meeting and will continue to report in upcoming followup coverage.]
“It’s not the Board of Selectmen that manage this project,” Boucher told Healy. “They’re not project managers and I’m not a project manager, but it is important for it to be done right. That’s why we have staff who are designated to do this and the roles are very well laid out.”
Healy expressed concern about an ongoing list of additional items, including furniture, demolition and IT tech, that have been added on to the project and paid out of the contingency fund.
“I’m not questioning any of the items, per se. I just don’t see a comprehensive analysis of the financial data,” Healy said. “All of these are apparently add-ons coming out of the contingency (and) the way it’s presented to us takes our contingency almost down to zero.”
Officials present, including representatives from Tecton Architects who are working with some of the numbers involved but reportedly also don’t have a complete accounting, were unable to say how much was still in the contingency fund.
“I can’t speak to the total budget (but) you are getting close to fully leveraging your contingency,” Rebecca Hopkins, project architect with Tecton, said.
Pardo explained that certain items that had not been budgeted for were still deemed absolutely necessary for the project, so they’re being paid for out of the contingency fund.
“There were some necessary items,” Boucher said in support. “They’re not negotiable.”
Healy noted, however, that some of these — such as furniture — should have been postponed and revisited by the BOS.
“We need to come up with a better solution going forward, especially as we get closer and closer to utilizing all of our contingency,” said Healy, who previously tried to provide Pardo, Boucher and others with accounting sheet templates in order to help lend clarity.
Boucher continued to defend the staff and its decisions, indicating that Healy was trying to “micromanage” the project.
“Kim, they use their own process and that is what we have to go on,” Boucher said. “We can’t ask them to recreate their process and have a dual process going forward on this.”
Boucher said that once Wilton’s CFO Dawn Norton returns, indicating she has been out of state, the discussion could resume at the next BOS meeting on June 17.
“We didn’t approve that process, Toni,” Healy said, also noting an email that Tartell apparently sent to the BOS on the matter, regarding responsibilities over financial tracking, expenditure approvals and reporting to the BOS.
“I think we should then talk about Ross’s email, right, about how we as a Board of Selectmen expect the project to be managed going forward,” Healy said. [Editor’s note: GOOD Morning Wilton has obtained a copy of that email and will report on it in forthcoming continued coverage.]
Selectman Josh Cole said he hoped to see more details with regard to spending on the project.
“I think we need to have a clear understanding of the project … Looking at this, I’m not sure where we are,” he said, citing a spreadsheet of figures provided by Pardo.
Pardo defended the amount of time it takes to stay on top of the construction and design, indicating that while he could provide more details on items, the BOS would probably not even understand what some of them entail.
“You have to be there in the field and you have to look at the work, and you have to know what the work is,” Pardo said.
“I’m not looking for that level of detail,” Cole said. “I’m looking for categories of expenses.”
Healy said she wasn’t even looking for as much detail as Cole, but at least wanted to know how much money was being spent.
“I am very happy to leave it to the experts to say, but there needs to be some form of oversight, and the contingency is getting low … We are not being told what the contingency balance is right now,” she said.
Pardo said that, to date, $7,950,000 has been paid to A. Secondino and Son, Inc.
“They’ve been paid approximately 57% of the project,” he said. “The building is more than 50% completed (but) there’s still a lot of work left to do.”
While he didn’t give an updated timetable, Pardo has previously said the project could be delayed by as much as six months.
Selectman Bas Nabulsi said that, based on requests the police department is making for the project, including IT needs, it was evident that not everything had been foreseen during the planning.
Boucher agreed.
“There were essential items left out in the original estimates and because they’re essential, they have to be covered … This is before Jeff’s time. This is before my time,” she said, adding later that they weren’t going to “go back in time to point fingers.”
In April, Pardo told the BOS that Tecton’s designs had been incomplete at the time the project began and should not have gone out to bid.
“We’re probably going to overshoot the bonding authority that we had,” Nabulsi said, noting that the BOS would need to identify additional sources of funding.