Report: Not all options considered for Seven Locks school replacement

Council blasts school system and calls for further investigation

Friday, Feb. 17, 2006

Montgomery County school planners decided to build a replacement for Seven Locks Elementary School in Potomac without considering two less costly options, according to a report released Wednesday by the county’s inspector general.

The school system also may have ignored board procedures in awarding an $817,500 architect contract, according to the report.

Inspector General Thomas J. Dagley also found that Superintendent Jerry D. Weast misstated community support for a replacement to the Potomac school.

School officials have always said building a new 68,000-square-foot school on Kendale Road would cost less than a two-phased renovation and expansion of the old school on Seven Locks Road. Just two weeks ago, school officials released updated cost estimates showing the Kendale site school would come in at $18 million, or $1.3 million less than improving the old school.

But community groups long opposed to the plan say school officials ignored concerns about the new school.

The IG report is ‘‘blistering and unflinching,” said County Councilman Howard A. Denis (R-Dist. 1) of Chevy Chase, who has raised concerns about the replacement school. ‘‘I feel misled and let down that information we should have had wasn’t provided and had to be dug out ... by the IG report.”

Denis plans to introduce a budget amendment on Feb. 28 to rebuild Seven Locks Elementary at its existing location. That proposal would go to a public hearing at 7 p.m. March 21.

The Education and Management and Fiscal Policy committees will meet at 2 p.m. that same day to discuss the audit report.

The council approved building the replacement school on Kendale Road in May 2004. It will hear public testimony about a request for an additional $3.3 million to cover rising construction costs for the project at 7:30 p.m. on March 7.

Council reaction

Other council members are questioning the information they were given when they made the decision to build on Kendale Road.

‘‘This report raises significant questions regarding the information provided to the Council by MCPS on which the Council based its decision-making,” County Council President George L. Leventhal (D-At large) of Takoma Park wrote in a memo Tuesday calling for the Feb. 28 joint committee meeting. ‘‘I am not making any judgments at this time about the merits of the IG’s report, his findings or his recommendations, but I do feel that due diligence requires that the Council review them in detail before final decisions are made on a new school.”

Marilyn J. Praisner, who chairs the MFP Committee, said the council could examine how the school system estimates projects, how it contracts with architects and how it presents options to the board and council.

‘‘There’s admittedly money that has been spent,” Praisner (D-Dist. 4) of Calverton said. ‘‘But there’s still an opportunity to settle those issues.”

Michael L. Subin, who heads the Education Committee, called the audit’s findings ‘‘absolutely inadequate.”

‘‘It simply looks at dollars and there is no consideration of the policies and all of the issues that arose out of Potomac Elementary,” said Subin (D-At large) of Gaithersburg. ‘‘And if one goes along with this report, there are a number of unsatisfactory impacts that fall out from it.”

The audit ignored enrollment projections, he said, which showed Seven Locks about 50 students under its capacity before the modernization. Enrollment growth at nearby Potomac Elementary would exceed capacity even after sending some Potomac students to Seven Locks, the school system’s projections showed.

The council in May 2004 decided to move the school to Kendale Road after determining that heavy traffic on Seven Locks Road made it unsafe to keep students on that site, Subin said.

‘‘My question is basically going to be why wasn’t the history of this looked at and why are you looking at options to a plan that had been dismissed?” he said. ‘‘We would’ve looked at options had the decision be made to stay on the site. It wasn’t even a close call. It was not in the best interest of the kids to stay on the site. Period.”

On Thursday, Dagley defended the audit.

‘‘Hopefully we’ve prepared a report that’s self explanatory,” he said. ‘‘The scope of the audit was designed from the very beginning to look at information up to and including information presented to the council on May 27, ’04 when the initial $14 million was approved for the [construction budget].”

Dagley called that decision ‘‘the most important made on the project to date. The audit considered more than just the money, he said.

‘‘I think other factors were then, and remain, a very important part of the decision-making process,” he said. ‘‘Those other issues, from an audit standpoint, are not as quantifiable.”

They were, however, discussed with the school system staff, he said.

Schools’ reaction

Board President Charles Haughey echoed Subin’s assertion that the findings ignored how the decision to build a new 740-student school on Kendale Road would address crowding issues as a whole and focused only on the cost of the replacement project.

‘‘It seemed to take a narrower view than the board takes in its full range of responsibilities,” said Haughey (At large) of Rockville, who is a member of the Audit Committee. ‘‘It’s looking entirely at the Seven Locks phenomenon rather than the impact of the additional classrooms on the Churchill cluster and on the whole system.”

Larry A. Bowers, the school system’s chief operating officer, said that the school system disagrees with the finding that school planners ignored such cost-effective options as building a new school on Seven Locks Road or improving it all at once rather than in two phases.

‘‘There was no request to look at other options at that time,” Bowers said.

The Audit Committee asked school planners to look into the finding that they did not follow board procedures requiring the system to advertise specific projects before awarding contracts, he said.

‘‘We’ll certainly be doing that,” Bowers said.

Taking umbrage

Meanwhile, some school board members are asking whether Dagley, who reports to the County Council, overstepped his bounds.

County law establishes the inspector general’s ability to review operations of ‘‘independent county agencies,” including the school system.

But in a five-page letter to Dagley on Feb. 7, school board member Stephen N. Abrams (Dist. 2) of Rockville, chairman of the board’s Audit Committee, wrote that two legal opinions he solicited conclude ‘‘that state law does not provide such authority to the Inspector General.”

‘‘I’m convinced the school system is an entity of the state, and not the county government,” Abrams said in an interview.

Abrams wrote the letter in response to a draft of the audit report. Dagley asked Weast to respond to his findings in a Jan. 31 memo.

Dagley said Abrams’ memo was the first time he heard any concerns about his authority to conduct the audit.

‘‘If there was a question, it was never raised,” he said, adding that the school system was ‘‘very helpful, very cooperative and very supportive in giving us all the information they had available that had been requested.”

Praisner, a former school board member, said she found it ‘‘highly unusual” that Abrams would comment instead of the superintendent or president of the board.

‘‘I’m fully supportive of the IG looking into any people we give money to ...,” she said. ‘‘The IG’s office has been in operation for a long time. I take exception to the legal opinions. We have budgeting authority. We have some oversight authority. It’s really unfortunate that the school system chose to whine about this after the fact.”

Staff Writers Peggy Vaughn and Janel Davis contributed to this report.

Read the report

The inspector general’s report may be read at www.montgomerycountymd.gov. Click on ‘‘Services,” then on ‘‘Inspector General.”

FINDINGS

School planners presented the school board and County Council with costs for two options — building an addition to the existing school and building a new school on Kendale Road — although less costly options existed.

To improve fiscal accountability, a process is needed to ensure that the board and County Council receive complete and reliable cost information.

Evidence ‘‘does not support” statements made by Superintendent Jerry D. Weast to the board that the Seven Locks PTA proposed or supported a replacement school.

Awarding an $817,500 architect contract for the design and construction of the replacement school may have violated the school board’s rules.