Testimony of Richard T. Anderson, President, New York Building Congress, to New York City Board of Education on Proposed Five-Year Capital Plan for Fiscal Years 2000-2004

March 2, 1999

The New York Building Congress applauds the Board of Education and Chancellor Rudolph F. Crew for preparing the latest five-year capital plan. We are especially pleased to see the Board's commitment to an $11 billion program presented within the context of a 10-year needs assessment. This proposal is critically important to the economy and long-term competitiveness of the City of New York and particularly to the young people of New York.

In endorsing the Capital Plan, however, the Building Congress also is calling attention to several serious building industry issues that must be addressed if the plan is to implemented effectively. Moreover, this program -- large and ambitious as it is -- is not sufficient to maintain and invigorate the City's overall educational facilities, nor is it comprehensive enough to deal adequately and continuously with the school system's capital needs.

The City's design, construction and real estate community knows quite well how important capital facilities are to New York's future well being. By outlining specific strategies to return existing school facilities to a state of good repair, increase overall educational capacity, provide state-of-the-art technology in every school, and pursue other necessary objectives, the Board of Education's comprehensive capital program deserves the widest possible support.

Background
The Building Congress has been concerned with school construction and maintenance since its founding in 1921. Our members have designed, built and helped to maintain school facilities for many generations. In recent years, the Building Congress was strongly behind creation of the School Construction Authority and has rallied support for major improvements in the overall school building process. We have endorsed previous five-year plans of the Board of Education and have encouraged increased financial support for them. At the same time, we have shared widespread dismay over lack of adequate effort to maintain school facilities in a state of good repair and the absence of sufficient funding for school construction. Perhaps most important, we have observed the decline of quality and performance in school design and construction, with most of our members electing not to bid on School Construction Authority jobs. Over the last two years, for example, the Building Congress Education Committee had made a series of recommendations to improve SCA procedures, only some of which have been acted upon.

The Building Congress has concluded that, until preparation of this plan, the Board of Education has not been adequately maintaining its educational facilities, not sufficiently investing in the future, nor approaching the issue with strategic direction or generating sufficient resources to meet the school system's basic capital needs, particularly with respect to needed expansion and urgent rehabilitation.

Recommendations
The Building Congress believes this capital plan is the best prepared by the Board of Education and that it provides a solid basis for needed school building and rebuilding. We have a number of recommendations for enhancing its utilization and expediting implementation:

1. Improve the construction process - The Board of Education, School Construction Authority, and Department of Design and Construction must work with the City's major union and management groups to improve the quality of contractors and skilled labor on construction jobs. Both the Building and Construction Trades Council and Building Trades Employers' Association have made specific recommendations for addressing this urgent need.
2. Pursue Aggressive Constituency Building - In his message with the capital plan, Chancellor Crew said, AIt matters where our students learn.@ This capital program should concern everyone who lives or works in the City of New York. It needs and deserves the widest possible understanding and support. That means business and labor, community groups and the media, and all who have a stake in New York's future. Broadening the constituency for better schools is a challenge for all of us.
3. Adopt Rolling Five-Year Plans - Like the City's capital budget, the five-year capital plan for the Board of Education should be updated and acted upon every year. This will improve overall understanding of its needs and strategies and help to attract sufficient resources for implementation.
4. Rationalize Institutional Relationships - Implementation of this capital plan faces many challenges. One challenge is the plethora of inspectors, administrators, and other participants involved with the process. The plan actually proposes additional project monitoring by the Board of Education's Division of School Facilities on top of what is already done by SCA, DDC, and others. Effective project management is accomplished by streamlining the management process rather than adding to it.
5. Clarify Accountability and Responsibility - The Board of Education must be responsible for overall programs and project priorities. As the proposed plan indicates, the Board can improve its procedures in this regard. But the real need is for top-to-bottom clarification of responsibility. Mayor Giuliani is on target with his call for centralizing school construction accountability within the Mayor's Office. But the streamlining needs to be accomplished all the way through to on-site project managers. Too much decision making gets bogged down throughout the design and construction process.
6. Commitment - By any measure, the City of New York has enormous capital investment needs, none more critical than for its public schools. The Building Congress commends the Board of Education's commitment to address this problem with greater urgency through this five-year plan. It is of utmost importance that the plan be adopted now and implemented promptly. Without a continuing commitment to public education facilities, the Building Congress believes the City will fall behind in the global economy and fail to meet the educational needs of current and future generations.