Panel Promises Speedup of School Bond Projects

A citizens oversight group reported Monday that projects representing only about 10% of the $2.4-billion Proposition BB school bond are underway so far. But the panel’s chairman, making his first formal progress report on the massive school repair and construction bond, emphasized that the pace is about to take off.

“In the next 250 days you’re going to see things happen,” said Steven Soboroff, chairman of the committee created by voters in April when they approved the bond measure.

In a report delivered to the Los Angeles Board of Education, Soboroff acknowledged that the bond-funded work got off to an “arthritic” start.

“When it got out of bed, it needed to warm up,” Soboroff said.

But he said the work will begin to accelerate now that early organizational problems have been solved by a change in leadership in the program management team of 3DI/O’Brien Kreitzberg, retained by the district to coordinate the work.

“Perhaps the 10% will be tripled by March,” board member Victoria M. Castro suggested with a trace of sarcasm. “I’m concerned that at the one-year point, there are going to be people saying, ‘Where are the projects?’ ”

When pressed by Castro on the appearance that “somebody is dragging their feet,” Soboroff blamed the slow start on what he characterized as too close a relationship between 3DI/O’Brien Kreitzberg and district facilities officials.

Expanding on his remarks later, Soboroff said 3DI/O’Brien Kreitzberg’s former project director, Ruth Hobbs, had been unable to add sufficient staff to move bond-funded jobs swiftly.

“I think that independence is clearly there now,” Soboroff said.

Hobbs was replaced as team leader two weeks ago in a move attributed by school officials to her desire to spend more time with an ailing family member in the Bay Area.

Hobbs’ replacement, Dennis Martinez, said Monday that the program manager’s team has been beefed up from nine to 23 members, an expansion he said was prevented earlier by the district approval process.

Martinez said Beth Louargand, the district’s general manager for facilities, wanted to hold back “to make sure the money was being spent wisely, to be sure there was enough work in the pipeline.”

The written report presented to the board Monday--the first of what will be quarterly progress reports--gave only a brief summary of work started in the eight months since the approval of Proposition BB.

It said that 1,894 projects--about 18% of all those scheduled--were either in design or under construction.

When completed, those projects will use up $264 million, about 9.2% of the total bond measure, Louargand told the board.

So far, 302 projects have been completed and the district has spent about $39 million, Louargand said.

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But Louargand said the work done so far is not the most costly.

“If you think about the course of a project, most of them [begin with] design,” Louargand said. “Design is usually the smallest part of the cost.”

Projects now underway, according to the report, include 171 to install air-conditioning, 71 to modernize campuses, 141 to install high-technology equipment and 63 to put in portable classrooms for class-size reduction.

Some board members criticized the form of the oversight committee’s written report, most of which consisted of a broad statement of purpose, highlights of the oversight committee’s meetings and copies of all its resolutions.

A summary of what Soboroff considered the committee’s major accomplishments included speeding up air-conditioning work and reducing its cost, encouraging school parents and officials to suggest changes in plans, and a recommendation to substitute trees and lawns for about 30% of the asphalt on school campuses.

In other action, the board voted:

* To extend to all the district’s bargaining units the same salary increase negotiated with the teachers union in August. The pay package, retroactive to July 1, provides a 6% increase this year and an additional 4% over the next two years.

* To require district staff to report by Feb. 1 on all contracts greater than $25,000 entered into this school year with consultants and outside attorneys and to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of other ways to get their work done.

* To instruct district staff to study, in consultation with Los Angeles city officials, the feasibility of offering a housing assistance program to help recruit and maintain employees. Board member Valerie Fields, who proposed the measure, said the Los Angeles Police Department has had success with such a program.