L.A. Unified’s Air-Conditioning Dispute Grows Hotter

Allegations that the costs of air-conditioning Los Angeles Unified School District campuses are rapidly escalating renewed calls Thursday from the chairman of a citizens committee to turn the work over to an independent energy consortium.

“They are out of control,” said Steven Soboroff, chairman of the oversight committee charged with monitoring spending of Proposition BB bond funds. “As the amount of work out there is tightening up the labor market, we’re winding up paying more money for an inferior product.”

The lobbying came after one of the consortiums produced a list of bids for 54 schools where air conditioning is being installed by a group of district-hired contractors. The list indicated that although the first wave of jobs came in under budget, the final 14 landed an average of 21% above estimates.

School district officials disputed the figures and, on closer examination, there was indeed an error in the numbers printed in the Southern California Construction Bulletin, the source for the list.

Once corrected, the difference between the original estimate and lowest bid was closer to 10%--which critics say is still significant.

The dispute is the latest chapter in the battle over how best to cool 300 campuses, touched off by Soboroff’s insistence that there must be a more creative and faster approach than using the district’s contractors.

The bone of contention is that the outside consortiums were forced to submit formal bids--with maximum price guarantees--while the district-controlled contractors produced only nonbinding estimates.

Initially, the district staff recommended rejecting the outside bids that grew from Soboroff’s suggestion, saying the internal process was significantly cheaper. Then district business czar Hugh Jones recommended an Orange County consortium, which bowed out a day later, saying it was being set up for failure. On Monday, Jones resigned without making a substitute recommendation, thus leaving the decision in limbo.

But Supt. Ruben Zacarias appeared ready to step in. In a proposal reviewed by board members in closed session Monday, Zacarias said he would solicit final bids from the two remaining consortiums--headed by two state energy giants, the Department of Water and Power and Pacific Gas & Electric Co.--and make a recommendation to the school board in early February.

Soboroff, who plans to take the matter up with his board next week, said Zacarias’ decision indicates that the district status quo is out of the running.

But several board members said that is not yet the case. “I don’t think anything is ruled out yet,” said board President Julie Korenstein.

Though even a 10% gap between the estimate and the bid would seem to be damning for the status quo, district officials said the complicated world of construction makes that difference misleading.

Facilities spokesman Erik Naserenko said that first, the estimates were made before the bond passed and did not include work added later, such as laying computer conduit, which increased the scope of the job. Then, he said, after contractors took a closer look at the schools, they sometimes found additional problems, such as asbestos that needed to be removed.

In the case of Olive Vista Middle School in Sylmar, the district’s original estimate was just over $1 million, but the lowest contractor bid came in at $1.4 million. Naserenko said $150,000 of that difference involved conduit, $70,000 involved an unanticipated need for electrical upgrade to accommodate the air conditioning, $5,000 was for asbestos removal and $1,000 was for lead removal.

“The air conditioning also came back a little bit higher, and that could be just supply and demand,” he said. “As the market becomes saturated, contractors know they can charge a little bit more.”

PG&E; spokeswoman Diane Sable said the broad fluctuation would not occur with the consortiums.

“Our price is a guaranteed fixed price, based on a very, very thorough analysis,” Sable said. Though she acknowledged that unexpected environmental problems, such as asbestos, could arise, “we have gone to every single school site and as a result of that . . . the chances of there being a difference would be much more minimal.”