Woodrow Wilson Building Committee

Woodrow Wilson Building Committee March 26, 2018 Minutes Present: Chair Mary Bartolotta, Vice Chair Christopher Drake, Richard Pelletier, John Giuliano, Kristen Byrd, Philip Pessina, Ted Raczka, Vin Loffredo, and Assistant Superintendent of Schools Macri Enza and Facilities Manager John Cross Absent: Sheila Daniels, John Phillips, and C. Bonsignore. Also Present: TSKP Randall Luther and Ryszard Szczpek and Finance Director Carl Erlacher, City of Middletown; four members of the public. Meeting Called to Order. The Chair called the meeting to order at 6:05 p.m. Public Comments: No member of the public came forward to speak Approval of minutes: Mr. Pessina moves to approve the minutes as sent with corrections; his motion is seconded by Ms Byrd. There is no discussion. The vote is called and it is unanimous with one abstention by Mr. Pelletier. The Chair states the minutes are approved. Noted for the Record Vin Loffreddo enters the meeting at 6:06 p.m. The Chair states Mr. Cross is at a facilities meeting and asks to move up the Director of Finance to discuss the participation of the Finance Department and she understands anything that the Finance Department can do, she will have to ask the Mayor for approval. Mr. Erlacher states they did some work for the high school; the Finance Department took over after it was awarded by GC and did billing, etc. Purchasing did most of the bidding and they saved a couple of million and used the savings for the auditorium. Whatever it takes. Whatever they pass it will be inclusive of grants so we have to stay in budget and anything we can do to save a dime, you will need. The Chair discussed this with Mr. Erlacher and what it meant to the High School and what it means to the committee. We touched on it last meeting regarding soft costs paid on time and kept track of. Marie will be the person to work with the Finance Department; They will give assistance for Marie and it plays into some of the decision making we do next because the City Finance Department can handle that with Marie putting it through and it will save time and money. Mr. Erlacher states there are times they are busy but they will do everything in our power and we need to ask the Mayor. The Chair states they haven’t chosen what to do with this, but we needed to know that the Finance Department could pay a major role and it is an option we need to weigh out. We will have a presentation by TSKP and what it will mean and how Finance will work out. Ms Bartolotta states we get permission from the Mayor to do the job for the building committee. Mr. Erlacher states we have Purchasing sending out bids and would work with the format you chose. Noted for the Record Mr. Raczka takes a seat at 6:09 p.m. Marie would pay the bills and staff would be onsite to make sure things charged to the appropriate lines. He states everyone would be helping. Chair Bartolotta says we discussed a point of contact. Mr. Erlacher states for the High school we used Diana and for Moody and Wesley we used Tayna. Marie asks if a computer will available and access to the system and Mr. Erlacher explains how it works. He states one last thing; we are not taking management responsibilities from you; we are only doing the processing. Chair states to make an informed decision we needed to understand the place of the Finance Department. Mr. Pessina states on my committee we would still have a monthly tally of budgeted items and tally of what’s left. Mr. Erlacher responds yes, that will be shown once Marie puts in the input. Mr. Pessina states his question is when do we expect to hear from the State on the reimbursement rate. Chair states it could be early as May and late as June. Mr. Szczpek states you received from the State the reimbursement rate. What they haven’t received is the approval. Mr. Drake states it is packaged as a bill and the General Assembly ends May 2; in normal operating times that would be the last date for it to pass and it would be a bill passed by legislature and then signed by the Governor. The Chair is optimistic on the date. Mr. Loffredo asks if the Bond Commission has to act on it; the expenditure does not occur until the Bond Commission meets and approves it. Mr. Luther states they are not necessarily linked. The bonds for this project are not for two or three years. Mr. Loffredo they have to put the money aside for this project and they have to approve the project. It is action by the Governor’s office. Mr. Szczpek states once the Governor has signed the legislature, monies can be spent and I know you need to be reassured. Chair states once the legislative body has voted it through, then it is the process of moving it forward through the Governor and the Bond Commission. Mr. Loffredo states there is such a mess up there and it is a political mess up there. Chair states the process for the City is clear and the reimbursement thing that has been ironed out and we are on a short list with them ½ the cost is ours. It can make it more digestible for the State. We are one of 8 projects on the list. Chair asks if there are other questions for Carl. Hearing none, the Chair thanks him for coming in. Chair moves on to TSKP for an update. Mr. Szczpek discusses a recap of where we left off. We had discussion of Construction Manager, General Contractor and an Owner’s Representative. I didn’t learn until after the meeting and what you described, Vin, was an unusual circumstances (regarding the building of the High School). You should not repeat that experience. Mr. Szczpek recommends to the committee seriously consider a construction manager and not general contractor method because the building and site will be occupied by students and teachers while construction has to be phased. We have to get an early start of demolition of a portion of the building to begin and it would be better to get someone on board sooner rather than later. The first phase is demolition of the auditorium. The March 26, 2018 WWMS Building Committee 1 committee needs the advice and that is why a construction manager is the ideal way to go. You would issue an RFP for construction manager services delivered in two parts. You would look for the advice to help with phasing and cost estimating. They are in a better position to tell you what the market is. If you are not happy with your construction manager and preconstruction services you don’t have to execute part 2. The construction manager would hold all the subcontracts and issue checks to every subcontractor, you want the construction manager to hold all the subcontractors and it is a construction manager at risk. When Carl gets an invoice, it would be one check issued by the city to the construction manager and he would pay all the sub contractors. Chair asks how it will work and what if one of the subcontractors needs more money to do xyz and typically we would review that and say we don’t agree and how do we handle that - change orders. They can get out of hand and destroy a project and I would not be comfortable with one individual signing off without a process from the committee. Mr. Szczpek that individual would have a guaranteed maximum price and he would get them and qualify the bids and ask what is in their bid and he does the scoping review and he recommends to the committee the subcontractors that should be used. I will give you a guarantee max price and you sign the contract and I will hire all these subcontractors and he would carry a construction contingency because he knows there may be grey areas and he would need wiggle room to negotiate with some subcontractors. That number is constantly revealed to the committee and you would see the billing for every subcontractor and you would see what is left in the contingency and he can’t spend it without your approval and any money that is left over goes to the project and it is separate from your project contingency. The budget we did we recommended construction contingency line item for the project. Mr. Pessina states our Finance Dept vets the expenditures. Simplistically our department would cross check that for services and money paid. Mr. Szczpek states the Finance Director will monitor the bills from the Construction Manager with the backup material. It is not a hidden process like the general contractor method. He doesn’t tell you who he hires and if he carries a contingency and usually he doesn’t. He submits his budget and you don’t know how he spends the money with subcontractors. Mr. Drake states we have to comply with State laws paying wages like prevailing wages. The manager would know and what each wage rate is. Mr. Szczpek states they have to be bundled in with the bid contracts. You have to have them within 30 days of the bid. Mr. Drake states did you sub out some things from your first contract. Mr. Szczpek they are not subject to prevailing wages. Mr. Drake states he knows but the O & G’s cost spec did it include a construction manager costs. Mr. Szczpek Yes. Chair states you can look at those documents and there are no hidden costs and we tried to make sure everything is in there. Mr. Szczpek shows the document and referred to one of the options and it included a line item for preconstruction services and included GMP and GMP contingency and fees during construction.. It is all in and came up with $73.4 million and below the line there are a lot of costs not part of construction including furniture, architect fees surveying and abatement. Those are the Building Committee’s responsibility. Mr. Szczpek all in it is $87.3 million. Mr. Loffredo asks Mr. Szczpek to explain CM at risk and it is much more expensive. Mr. Szczpek states that is debatable. Mr. Loffredo states if I am at risk, I would have March 26, 2018 WWMS Building Committee 2 to take out insurance. What is the risk for the construction manager. Mr. Szczpek states at risk means the construction manager vetted the project enough, received bids, carries contingency for disputes and grey areas, if any of that happens it is the CM’s risk. He is responsible for it. Mr. Loffredo asks if the project runs over, what happens. Mr. Szczpek states he will have to pay for the project running over. Chair states if we do it, we take on that entire risk and it can cost a lot more than taking on a CM. That is where your point is made about whether it is more costly to hire a CM or not. Mr. Szczpek states Carl will get one invoice from the CM and bills from my office, surveyor, Furniture vendors and he will compare the bills with the master budget and we can help with the master budget and he can report to the committee monthly, how much is committed, spent and what the balance is. Mr. Luther states there is quite a process before you get the bills; the CM will vet the bills from the subcontractor and we will walk the project with the Construction Manager and you may have a subcommittee to make sure that portion is done and you can sign off. Carl will just keep the cost and make sure you don’t exceed the funding for the project. Chair states if there is $150,000 portion of the project but it comes out $155,000 and then the additional money comes from their contingency and we would review what the cost overrun was to justify with Finance. It is checks and balances and nothing should go out of the budget once it is approved. Mr. Szczpek states we are certified and we have to make sure goods and services have been delivered to the site and if it is at a warehouse, I would visit it to make sure they are in the warehouse. Mr. Drake states we would do RFP and are the firms Connecticut based. Mr. Szczpek states they are from the northeast. Mr. Drake is assuming in the proposal they will state their former projects. Mr. Szczpek states that is another reason to go with CM based on qualifications, references and fees. It is professional services. Chair we would handle it the same way we did when we hired TSKP. Mr. Szczpek states ideally they would be on board the same time we were on board. Chair explains the process, then interviews and the committee would meet to make the decision who to hire. Mr. Pessina states it is our confidence to work with that person or firm. Chair explains the interview process the committee used to hire TSKP. Mr. Szczpek states we talked about a construction manager, a general manager and an owner’s rep. He states Owner’s Rep what is it and do you want it. We pulled together a sample owner’s rep services. I was glad Carl and Marie were here today and some of the services Carl and Marie can handle. Chair asks how much they can handle and they may say we can’t handle this we need someone else. Chair asks that they go over some of things on the list. Mr. Luther states this is part of an RFQ from another town looking for Owner’s Rep services and it is a good list of the things towns might want someone to do for them. It is to manage the paper and the process. The owner’s rep may help you deal with creating a process for change orders. They are the onsite manager and catch all to do things that don’t fall anywhere else. The owner’s rep would help put together the RFQ. Another piece that communities find is to deal with the State and the paperwork. If your architect is not familiar with the process or gc doesn’t care, the wording he uses may not help you get reimbursed, this person would help with that. Someone has to make sure paperwork is submitted to the State for the change order and if not done in timely fashion, you won’t get reimbursed. That can be assigned to someone on the committee, to us, or the owner’s rep. These things need to be followed and someone needs to be incharge. Project closeout. Someone needs to take charge of that; an owner's rep can stay on March 26, 2018 WWMS Building Committee 3 everyone. When they get their 95% payment, it is hard to get them to close out. They can check certified payroll, but a CM can have it assigned to him. It is that kind of thing. It is a big project. The project schedule, until you get a CM on board, someone needs to keep an eye on that schedule to make things flow smoothly. There are a lot of those tasks. You are the on-site manager. They do the running around; for a lot of communities they don’t have the capacity to do that. It is leg work that needs to be done. Mr. Szczpek states it is the last one--coordinate schedules and deliveries. You will be buying new furniture. Someone needs to be at the facility receiving at times and signing for them and keeping them secure in the building. Someone needs to be at the loading dock to receive the goods; who can do that on behalf of the City. An owner’s rep could do that. Mr. Pessina states it could be the GM. Mr. Szczpek states you could do that. John Cross states he quoted it out as a possibility and we discussed what we are going to do with Keigwin and that time frame if we could get someone on board it would be beneficial to us. From my perspective that piece has already sailed. I think we should move forward with CM and we can assign some of the duties to that person. We need to get that done to move the project forward. Mr. Loffredo states you went through the proposed budget and you built in the CM at risk; he asks if owner’s rep was built in as well. Chair states we had a percentage in the budget to cover some of those things. Mr. Pelletier asks didn’t they have someone doing that; Mr. Loffredo states Pinnacle One did that. Mr. Pelletier states they were tripping over each other on that project. Chair states tonight is for information; if you have questions, please pose them in an email and we can have TSKP answer them. We will have a final discussion and then vote on them. Mr. Szczpek discusses the Green Building meeting that occurred at the urging of Michael Harris. Christine O’Hare was part of the feasibility study and reported to me that this was a presentation done by International Living Future Institute. It is an organization that promotes building buildings better than net 0. Net 0 does not waste energy whatsoever; what is better is generating energy and they are proponents of taking in all factors of sustainable design and energy. He states his pessimism will leak out and there were people proposing to build with recycled tires and bottles and raising chickens to harvest poop to generate methane. All of those have grown up and created these movements Green Globe and Leeds and formalized the process of sustainability and have developed score sheets to conserve energy and building smart. I am for that; unfortunately a lot has become a feeding frenzy for people who manufacture and they will all claim that anyway. It has become tainted. The State of CT has made it mandatory for a school project to make it comply with high performance building standards. They could have said Leed building or Green Globe. They chose not to because they didn’t want to subscribe to any of the entities and they developed their own score sheet and he is supportive of that. We are obligated to do that. It must comply with high performance, but not one of these organizations. Most projects don’t go through them; some will go through the Leed score sheet but not get the certification and it is one method the state will use to comply with the high building standards. Christine got good information and Mr. Harris is good about coordinating the energy savings. We should report to you what components will have sustainability measures and then report to you the additional costs to get certification from this institute or Leed organization. You can make the decision if it is worth it or March 26, 2018 WWMS Building Committee 4 not. The budget had originally energy conservation measures in it. Defer the issue on the Green building and lets get into the design and then see if it is worth it to get certification. MR. Pessina states you are saying you would be following the high performance standards by the State and if it adheres to sustainability, we don’t need Leeds certification because we have followed the State’s stricter standard. Mr. Szczpek responds it is equivalent to Leed Silver standard. Mr. Pessina you would ensure these are done; we don’t need a score sheet. Mr. Luther states further down the road we can come to you and you will be involved in the City. Chair states the information was sent to see if we could do better and it will come further down the road after the design to see if there is room to put more in. Mr. Szczpek right. Mr. Cross states don’t lose sight we will be stuck and we have to maintain it and operate it like a school building and there are a number out there don’t work for a school building. We can't be sucked into a big sales job and then not operate as a school. Chair states I want as much done for safety and we will weigh it out with energy savings. I want a fortress for our children that is beautiful. Mr. Loffredo for the record there is this section in writing that specifically in the City Code of Ordinances, energy shall be measured in accordance with Leed. If something has happened at the State level and is the State above or below Leed. Mr. Szczepek states the State will accept the Leed Silver level. We can comply with both. Chair states we will keep in touch with Mr. Harris. Mr. Cross offered that. Chair we will do something from the committee. John Cross states the contract was written and went through Professional Services committee and signed off on that and formal contract has been written for the $48,000 and it should be signed off this week and we will have to do another process and once the project is approved we have to look at that and will get the complete fee and look at an AIA contract. We will have to do some talking about contract on the total amount. Chair states the $48,000 was to move forward into negotiations for the next step. Why aren’t we doing that. Mr. Cross states it is what the actually contact will look like. He continues they will produce an AIA contract (American Institute of Architects) have documents used for this project the forms used in the industry and are accepted by the industry. They are commonly used between the City and Architect. Mr. Luther states they are coordinated with the Architect and City and the Architect and CM so all the contracts will not have conflicting language. You do a draft, then amend it for the project and it will go between our attorneys to work out the details, to add tasks so that piece takes time and needs to move along. Mr. Cross recommends we use that form and the City’s contract is not as good as we want. Chair when you spoke with Donna Imme, the standards do not have enough detail to cover the basic conversation. MR. Cross states the contract form is not adequate for this size contract and the next step is to go with the standard contract and we will go through it and you will need to bring in legal and go through it. Chair states we have to follow the guidelines with purchasing and that is your foundation so we can enter into negotiations for the bigger contract. The conversations need to be done. Mr. Drake states the reason the City has a base contract; you could comply with both the City and AIA and organize it in such a way that the City contract is the base and yours would be the scope of contract. We can’t do anything without the City’s basic contract. We need to get the $48,000 part done March 26, 2018 WWMS Building Committee 5 and ask Donna how to get the AIA contract. Mr. Drake discusses what might be in the City’s contract and might not be in the AIA contract. He states the scope of service will be what you actually do for us and how much it will cost. Mr. Pessina states during April and May, you want this to get done and coordinated and then it goes back to professional services committee for the rest of the money. Chair states the rest will come when the State approves the project. Discussion regarding further professional services meeting for architect does not. The Mayor will have to sign the contract for the Architects. Mr. Cross states we should move forward with CM process. Chair states digest what you have heard, put your questions in an email and we will reach out for an additional meeting so we can move that forward. Motion to Adjourn Mr. Pessina moves to adjourn and is seconded by Mr. Drake; the vote is unanimous to adjourn. The Chair declares the meeting adjourned at 7:27 p.m. March 26, 2018 WWMS Building Committee 6