After BOE Nudge, Wilton Moves Toward School Building Committee, Owner’s Agent

A week after Board of Education Chair Ruth DeLuca pressed the Board of Selectmen to establish dedicated oversight for Wilton’s already approved school infrastructure projects, town and school officials took a first step toward putting that structure in place.

At a joint BOE-BOS meeting on Monday evening, Aug. 24, officials interviewed representatives from two infrastructure consulting firms that could potentially serve as the town’s owner’s agent, helping manage school building projects planned for the coming year.

They also continued discussing the creation of a permanent school building committee, which First Selectman Toni Boucher said would be the town’s “first order of business.”

The meeting marked a shift from the discussion the BOS had at its regular meeting one week earlier, when DeLuca had brought the proposal directly to the BOS after Boucher did not include it on an earlier meeting agenda. Boucher initially questioned the need for an owner’s agent and raised concerns about how the position’s authority, accountability and relationship with town employees would be structured, and she ultimately agreed to meet with consultants to learn more about what an owner’s agent would do and how it would work in Wilton.

The BOS was largely amenable to the idea, though it is also in the process of considering the creation of a designated building committee to oversee all town projects, or possibly even creating one umbrella committee with separate subcommittees for school and municipal projects.

School construction carries additional procedural and financial requirements because projects seeking state reimbursement must follow state-approved educational specifications and be overseen through a required municipal structure. Mistakes in planning, documentation, contracting or invoice approvals could affect how much of Wilton’s project costs the state ultimately reimburses.

That made the division of financial responsibility a significant focus Monday. Boucher asked the consultants how invoices would be reviewed and approved when an owner’s agent and building committee handle much of a project’s day-to-day oversight, but town employees — including Department of Public Works and Finance Department staff — may still be expected to sign off on payments.

Boucher said those employees could face a difficult position if they were held responsible for approving invoices without being closely involved in the work that generated them.

“If the town, a building person, or CFO, signs those invoices, and you’ve reviewed them and signed off on them,” Boucher said, “but yet, they haven’t been involved in the process, does that put them in a difficult position if something goes wrong?”

“They’ve signed off on it but yet they weren’t involved in the process,” she continued. “Where do you come in as far as any liability when it comes to signing an invoice that may not have been valid necessarily?”

Talking with the Experts

The representatives officials met with during Monday’s informational meeting were from Middletown-based Arcadis Design & Consultancy and Colliers Project Leaders from Madison. The consultants each gave short presentations on their purpose and practices, and answered a range of questions from elected town officials, as well as some former school building committee members who were asked to participate in the meeting.

A third company, Construction Solutions Group from Hartford, was asked to participate but did not have a representative attend Monday’s online meeting.

Colliers Regional Director Chuck Warrington said that an owner’s agent wasn’t necessarily needed on every project, describing that sometimes ceiling tile or floor tiling projects in a school would not benefit from someone in the role.

“You can get anybody to track costs,” Warrington said. “If they’re not leading your project and protecting you and adding value, then they’re probably not needed.”

While Warrington didn’t directly address the issue of legal liability, he acknowledged that invoices have been wrongly approved before. He called it an uncomfortable situation if it occurs, but said it doesn’t happen that often and that they seek to repair any mistakes as soon as possible.

As far as to whom they’re specifically answerable, Warrington described that while the bulk of their interaction is with members of the building committee overseeing a project, ultimately the town administration that is signing his firm’s contract and paying them is the party to which they would be responsible.

As an example, he said if a contract is signed by a school superintendent, but the bills are going through the town budget, then the Town is the body to which they ultimately are beholden.

“The Town’s the one that’s bonding the project … That’s who we’re answering to for those bills,” Warrington said.

“The bottom line is we report to the Town and we’re the Town’s designee as noted,” he said.

Arcadis Senior Program Manager Jack Butkus said that for his firm, the way the process would usually work with a school project is that the Town appoints a building committee, with which the owner’s agent mostly interacts.

“The state says, ‘If you want to receive grant money through the state, you’ve got to do things like create a building committee,'” Butkus said. “Your legislative body in the town passes a resolution that empowers a building committee.”

“It’s a Town that’s writing the checks, as the bills come through,” he said.

DeLuca noted that the state’s requirement for a building committee in order for a municipality to receive reimbursements is connected to whether the project is specifically following its educational specifications per state requirement — an issue that has caused concern among school officials with regard to renovation work currently underway at both Cider Mill and Middlebrook Schools, according to comments Superintendent Kevin Smith recently made.

Warrington said that the building committee should always have a representative from the Board of Education in order to represent the school district’s needs, as well as ideally having at least one person with a construction background, ideally in commercial projects.

Representatives from both companies described their role as one of advocacy for the Town, school district and related building committee, each highlighting the attention they pay to not only the flow of the project from a physical construction standpoint, but also regarding billing, including keeping a close watch over change orders from construction vendors that can sometimes present new costs.

Boucher said that the next steps will be for town officials and potential building committee members to formulate and submit any additional questions they may have for the consultants.

“At this point we’re going to also be deliberating on the first order of business,” Boucher said, “which is to create a permanent building committee, because we need to have that in order to be able to get state reimbursement, so that’s going to be topic number one.”

“And then we’ll discuss with our colleagues on the Board of Education and internal staff on the next steps when it comes to an owner’s agent,” Boucher said.

“There are projects right now in the hopper, in process,” she said. “We have to have a good process for those, as well as all future projects that we’ll probably be deliberating on for the next budget cycle.”