May 31, 2016, the Office of the District of Columbia Auditor released a report on the DC Department of General Services management of the modernization of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. The Auditor found that the cost of the modernization project grew from $71 million to $178 million without a comprehensive review by the D.C. Council—the decision making body responsible for capital appropriations. “As is the case with other schools undergoing modernization, the budget for Ellington has more than doubled since it was proposed in the FY 2012 Capital Improvement Program,” D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson said. Factors in that growth in budget include location, underground parking, and an unusually high figure for space per student.
“The bottom line is that our school modernization program has had little discipline to date,” Patterson said. “We don’t use competition to help control costs, for example. There was no hard-dollar bid for the work on Ellington and, in fact, we don’t yet have a final construction price – and demolition began more than a year ago.”
To address that shortcoming, the report recommends that the District return to a traditional “design, bid, build” procurement process based on
nearly-complete plans followed by competitive bidding on the construction. Other recommendations are:
- Require completed “education specifications” for schools before a project is included in the Capital Improvement Plan.
- Ensure greater transparency in basic decisions such as location.
- Use multiple program management firms, instead of a single management contractor for all school construction.
- Consider additional compatible shared use for the new arts school to get more efficient use of the new facility.
- Draft a new comprehensive policies and procedures manual governing capital construction with clear guidelines that are consistent with best practices.
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