Angella Carella
STAMFORD — In May the police department began to leave its cramped, dilapidated, 60-year-old headquarters on Bedford Street and move into a state-of-the-art, twice-as-big building next door.
There were countless things to consider, including the monthly cost of electricity. For that, the department came up with an estimate, Acting Chief Thomas Wuennemann said.
“In the old building we were paying from $5,000 to $7,000 a month,” Wuennemann said. “For the new building we budgeted $8,000 to $9,000 because it’s twice the size but we figured it would be more efficient.”
It was a reasonable assessment, so eyes popped when the first electric bill arrived. It was $29,900.
“Alarm bells went off,” Wuennemann said. “We said, ‘If this is how much it’s going to cost, we’ll be through the money we budgeted within three months.’”The reaction was similar at City Hall when Laura Burwick, the mayor’s assistant for special projects, and officials in the Office of Operations saw the bill.
“We jumped out of our Burwick told members of the Board of Finance at their October meeting.It is one of several unexpected expenses associated with operation of the $44 million, 94,000-square-foot police headquarters. Burwick went before the board to request a total of $340,000 to cover costs that include services not provided by the contractor hired to manage the building.
The largest single cost, $145,000, was for electricity.
It has since been controlled, Burwick told the board.
“At first we were still getting a handle on the new systems in the building, but our engineer has been all over it and has significantly reduced electricity use,” she said.
“The following month the bill was $8,800,” Wuennemann said Friday. “The building has four different air handlers, so we are managing them. We work 24-7, but not all parts of the building are in use 24-7. No one’s in the administrative wing, for instance, during the midnight shift and on the weekends, so we shut that air handler down at those times.”
Burwick said officials figured they would have no electric bill for the old building, which will be razed. But that isn’t the case. “We have to keep it running because they have to do asbestos abatement before they take it down,” she told the board. “That added to electrical costs.”
Beyond that, officials did not realize the city would incur costs on top of its $439,400 annual contract with USA AffinEco, the company hired to manage the building, Burwick said Friday.
“At the time we were putting a budget together we made a decision to outsource management of the building. We budgeted a number we thought would be adequate; we did the best we could with the information we had at the time,” Burwick said. “Once we had the contract, we went through it and realized we had underbudgeted.”
The contract, for example, does not cover the generator, elevators and other specialized equipment. The city also will have to hire companies to provide pest control, drain cleaning, locksmith services, landscaping, snowplowing and repairs, Burwick said.
“The contract is for building maintenance and cleaning,” she said. “If someone throws a rock through a window, it’s not covered. Sometimes people in the jail cells clog the toilet or create vandalism. We would have to get someone from the outside to fix that.”
There will be added costs to the USA contract, she said, since company workers are unionized and due raises. But they work night and weekend shifts and will not be paid overtime as unionized city employees would be, and their health benefits cost less, she said.
So the city saves money despite the additional costs, which totaled $195,000, Burwick said. That combined with the $145,000 in electricity costs amounted to the $340,000 request before the finance board.
Member Sal Gabriele questioned the miscalculation.
“I’m stupefied. You mean to tell me that when plans were being put together, none of this came up?”Gabriele said. “Nobody projected what electricity and other maintenance would cost?”
Board Vice Chair Mary Lou Rinaldi said such estimates come with brand-new buildings, particularly high-tech ones the size of police headquarters.
“If this happened after five years in the building, maybe I would be shocked, too. But the fact that it’s happening the first year … it’s not that shocking. This is an experience process that the city has to go through,” Rinaldi said. “If they come back next year and the numbers are this off, maybe I’ll be mad. But I think we have to have some consideration for the fact that it’s a very different building.”
All six board members voted to appropriate the money, which was transferred from an account the city set aside after the state warned it would have to contribute to teacher retirement benefits. The state has since dropped the requirement.
Burwick said privatizing maintenance of the building will cost $575,000 a year. If the city did the work, it would cost nearly $1.1 million, she said.
“There are significant savings by outsourcing,” Burwick told the board.
Wuennemann said Friday there is a lot to learn about the building. Some units, including the bomb squad and special response team, just moved in last month.
“There’s a punch list for those offices, and they are working through them,” he said. “We’ve never experienced a winter here, so we don’t know what the heating bill will be, and snow will have to be removed from the parking garage, since it’s not all enclosed. We’ve never had to deal with that before, so we’ll see.”
Officers like the new locker room, but the interview rooms pose a problem that needs fixing, Wuennemann said.
“They are not insulated to the standard for interview rooms. They’re supposed to be silent,” he said. “The mics pick up people in the hallway. If you’re getting a confession, you don’t need to hear people walking down the hallway cracking jokes.”
Vineyard Wind partners with Seymour’s Marmon Utility to boost wind power proposal
Kevin Zimmerman
Vineyard Wind partners with Seymour’s Marmon Utility to boost wind power proposal
Kevin Zimmerman