smf: At the March 1, 2011 meeting of the Board of Education, Bond Oversight Committee Chairman David Crippens addressed the board on behalf of the BOC. He spoke to a number if issues, including Maintenance and Operations of new and existing schools and the impending turnover of BOC membership. Following are his comments on Inspection - which has blown-up and refuses to blow-over in subsequent news stories.
The chronology of this is:
Department of the State Architect notices to LAUSD, citing non-compliance since 1 December 2011
1st Daily News story/Feb 28| http://bit.ly/gkK7KO
Mr. Crippens remarks of 1 March
Department of the State Architect's correspondence of 4 March | http://bit.ly/dOUkCT
2nd Daily News Story of March 7 | http://bit.ly/i83O9F
Superintendent Cortines response of 8 March (follows)
In the period between Nov 30th and #1 - and continuing through #6 - there is no denying that there was a very serious management and systems failure within the Facilities Services Division of LAUSD. There is great effort being made to get these issues fixed but these lapses in inspection violate the law and should have never happened. The safety of workers in the workplace -and the future safety of students and employees in the schools being built and repaired - may have been compromised.
Quoting the DSA: "The LAUSD's failure to do so may compromise the integrity of the buildings, thereby endangering the public safety."
Despite the claims from LAUSD FSD that Safety is the Primary Concern it is clear to me that bad decisions were made driven by expedience and penny pinching. You cannot 'value-engineer' safety.
I remind everyone that all the LAUSD bond measures, from BB to K, R, Y and Q had SAFE SCHOOLS in the title. Safe Schools is what the voters voted for, Safe Schools is what the taxpayers are paying for.
The obvious question to me is: What is preventing this from happening again in other areas?
To be very clear: the Daily News stories have been fair and generally correct - and the current situation is a crisis in the school building and modernization program.
Chairman Crippens on Inspection | 1 March 2011
by David Crippens, Chair of the LAUSD School Construction Bond Citizens' Oversight Committee
Professional and competent inspection is a vital component of all properly managed construction programs, as well as a specific requirement of all school construction projects in California. In recent weeks, we have been distressed to learn that, contrary to the requirements, certain District construction projects have not had an Inspector of Record, or IOR, assigned.
Our investigations have led us to conclude that there are many reasons for this, including the aftermath of the recent rounds of reduction in force and the need to change methodologies of assignment of inspectors as the bond construction program changes from a major emphasis on new construction to vast majority modernization projects. At this point in time, we have not been able to form a conclusion regarding the adequacy of the current number of inspectors engaged by the District, even with the proposed changes in the methodology for assignments of Inspectors.
This issue must be resolved, and swiftly. We have been and are working with FSD staff, including Inspectors in the field, to grain a better understanding of the issues and the means to ensure proper assignment of qualified Inspectors to all projects. We will be receiving additional reports on this over the next few weeks to ensure that the District can fully meet all requirements.
The District has been demonstrating some progress. A recent e-mail from the new head of the Division of the State Architect showed that, of 20 "most critical" – DSA's term – projects, only one active project, the smallest dollar value project, did not have an IOR assigned. However, the only acceptable number is zero – all active construction projects must have a capable and credentialed DSA IOR assigned, with a workload that allows him or her to devote sufficient time to each project to do their job, and with sufficient assistants and specialty Inspectors as required.
The current condition, with active projects without IORs, cannot be allowed to continue. We do believe that Inspectors can be assigned more productively, but if this does not prove to be a comprehensive response in very short order, or if this situation cannot be quickly, and properly, resolved by other means, the BOC will recommend quickly increasing the number of Inspectors.
We realize that the District is facing severe budgetary constraints and, even though the Bond program is not directly financial impacted, the "general fund" restricted have forced many personnel cutbacks on bond-funded programs and positions. However, Inspection is one of those areas where, recognizing the standard requirement to use taxpayer funds wisely and productively, reductions cannot be allowed to the point where necessary statutory, management, quality control, and particularly safety requirements are not met.
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