Still Waiting for Prop. BB School Repairs

Karen Park bundles herself with sweaters to keep warm; the kindergartners in her class huddle around a small electric heater on the floor.

This is the second winter the heat has been out at Ivanhoe Elementary School. A contractor turned the heat off nearly two years ago to install a new air-conditioning system. It still isn’t finished.

The discomfort and inconvenience in Park’s kindergarten class are repeated at dozens of Los Angeles schools where repairs funded by Proposition BB school bonds drag on months or even years past deadline.

Contractor mix-ups, turmoil in the bond management structure and unexpected obstacles have set the giant repair program significantly behind schedule.

A Times computer analysis of Proposition BB financial records through Dec. 15, 1999, shows widespread problems:

* Of the 5,107 projects scheduled to be completed by mid-December, nearly 30% had not been finished. On average, those projects were 227 days overdue--more than seven months.

* Nearly 38% of projects scheduled to start had not.

* The late projects tend to be the largest and most costly ones. Of the $210 million budgeted for those projects, only slightly more than a third had been spent.

* About 1,000 more projects initially scheduled to be done by mid-December had their completion dates pushed back.

Officials for the district and its outside program manager, 3D/I-O’Brien Kreitzberg, acknowledge that the work has fallen behind. Their best current estimate, they say, is that the five-year repair program will extend to about 7 1/2 years.

They point to the sheer complexity of designing, bidding and coordinating 12,000 construction projects as the primary cause. They also contend that repeated overhauls of the district administration, as well as the program management, have set work back.

Since the program’s inception in 1997, the district’s facilities division has been reorganized twice and the superintendent and chief administrative officer had their contracts bought out.

“Whenever you reorganize, it takes some time for transition,” said Rob Robinson, the third 3D/I-O’Brien Kreitzberg program chief dismissed by the district. Interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines ordered Robinson, along with five other members of his team, off the job as of last week. He has not yet been replaced.

The $2.4-billion bond measure approved by voters in April 1997 provided about $1.2 billion for repair work and another $300 million to wire classrooms for modern communication systems and Internet access. The remaining $900 million was for new schools.

The program manager and 10 project managers have been continuously revising the target dates to bring them in line with the volume of work they could sustain, given the complexities of coordinating disruptive work with school schedules and the time required for planning and bidding large jobs.

Some deadlines were moved up and others back. On average, however, those changes pushed the timeline back by 4 1/2 months, the Times analysis shows.

“The program, in all its problems and issues, has been able to [spend] $25 million a month, and that’s no small thing,” Robinson said.

A potential new setback looms because of cost overruns in the classroom wiring projects, mostly scheduled this year.

The most recent monthly report from the program manager warned that so far the technology projects have used about 65% of their budgets on only 23% of the work.

The program manager, 3D/I-O’Brien Kreitzberg, ordered a freeze on all technology projects not yet underway in the hope of supplementing their budgets with funds from a federal program to upgrade school technology. The status of the extra funding could be up in the air until June or later.

Even if the federal funding comes through, the program manager expects to reduce the size of the projects, eliminating some fire and security alarms, cable television and public address systems.

A postponement in technology installations could cause a cascade of other delays. For example, because a conduit often has to be placed underground, playground resurfacing is usually done afterward, to avoid digging up new pavement. To keep the money and repairs flowing, Robinson said officials will continue to juggle the project schedule.

But the manipulations that seek to make order out of thousands of difficult repairs offer little relief for the distress of teachers and students who get caught up in contracting horror stories.

At Byrd Middle School in Sun Valley, a badly cracked playground, scheduled to be resurfaced six months ago, sprouts so many weeds that children trip and skin their knees almost every day.

“We’ve had many, many people come in,” said Principal Gerald Horowitz. “Supervisors, contractors, district people. We’ve given out lots of coffee, and nothing. Lots of talk, lots of motion, but nothing accomplished.”

At Jefferson High School, seats removed from the football stadium six months ago have still not been replaced--forcing the school to play home games this school year on rented fields.

This month, students from Jefferson High appeared before the Proposition BB citizen oversight committee to ask when their bleachers would reopen. The answer, entangled in a sad history of unforeseen problems and bureaucratic hurdles, was not until August.

Officials said the project ran into trouble as soon as the contractor tore out the old seats, exposing the beams of the 1920s-era wood structure. Dry rot and rusty nails were everywhere. Two months were lost removing asbestos before a structural engineer could poke through the building to design repairs for the bracing system. His plans required additional money, adding more weeks for approval of a change order.

At last, the plans are now with the state architect awaiting approval, said the district’s project manager, Mike Bargman.

“This stuff doesn’t happen in a week,” Bargman said. “We were trying to get everybody’s best opinion about what is the best way to go.”

Other delays are caused by contractors who get in over their heads.

“These aren’t Bechtel and Fluor Daniel,” said William Hensley of Vanir Inc., one of the 10 project management firms. “They’re only mom and pop. Some of them are inept.”

After months of foot-dragging on the air-conditioning job at Ivanhoe, Hensley said he has issued the contractor a three-day notice of default, a legal step preparatory to terminating the contract. But Hensley said he intends it more as a wake-up call.

With the job 85% done, it’s hard to eject a firm when the bidding process to replace it could take six months or more.

Principal Kevin Baker said Friday that after The Times asked questions, workers appeared in unusual numbers and he was told they would work through the weekend to get the heat on by Tuesday.

Despite their disappointments, many of the principals who are living through inconvenience and delay maintain an upbeat view of the repair program.

At Thomas Bradley Elementary School in South Los Angeles, Principal Genevieve Shepherd works under a gaping hole in the ceiling of her small office, where workers have broken out plaster for an air-conditioning system that was supposed to be installed last summer.

Nonetheless, Shepherd said she appreciates the accommodations the contractor made by sending workers in only after school hours.

Even though teachers complain about dusty and disheveled classrooms, she tries to keep them focused on the benefits they will eventually receive.

“I assure my teachers: ‘It came to pass. It will not always be,’ ” Shepherd said.

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Behind Schedule

Hundreds of Los Angeles school repairs and improvements funded by the 1997 Proposition BB bond measure are falling behind. Of 5,107 projects scheduled to wrap up by mid-December, 1,520, or about 30%, were still underway at this point. Here is a snapshot of the late projects at schools that are the most seriously behind schedule.

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Overdue Avg. Days % of School Projects Behind Budget Budget Spent Dodson Middle 6 392 $1.57 million 2% 6th Ave. Elementary 6 382 $1.19 million 11% Byrd Middle 6 357 $1.11 million 7% 122nd St. Elementary 6 293 $1.02 million 12% Manual Arts High 4 251 $1.09 million 4% Mann Middle 7 248 $0.66 million 2% Venice High 7 221 $1.09 million 0% Birmingham High 6 180 $1.06 million 26% Belvedere Middle 9 129 $0.96 million 0% Westchester High 8 108 $1.48 million 14%

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The chart below gives a breakdown of what stage the 1,520 projects had reached by mid-December.

Data analysis by Doug Smith

Source: Los Angeles Unified School District