‘Emergency’ bill questioned at EF board meeting

Neither the school board, nor administration said who selected the contractor to perform the work at Central Elementary School.

Questions over emergency plumbing and sewage work at an Elizabeth Forward School District elementary school led to a heated debate at a board meeting last week.

District resident Phillip Martell, who is superintendent of the River Valley School District in Blairsville, asked who deemed the plumbing/sewage situation at Central Elementary School an “emergency,” and who picked the contractor to perform the work to clean a sewer trap.

Martell, who has been a vocal critic of the ongoing construction and renovations at the high school and former board president Thomas Sharkey, said Central employees have known there was an issue with the sewage system for some time.

School board Vice President Rick Cummings also questioned how the work was deemed an emergency.

“I am interested in understanding the exact details surrounding this emergency construction work,” Cummings said. “I was aware of some issues that were not done the way that I would have appreciated it being done, but I am not understanding the level of detail that is being brought to light tonight. I would like to know how that vendor was selected, and why they were chosen to do that work during that time frame. I think it’s important for us to understand that.”

Director of finance and operations Al Ragan explained he was approached during the October Color Run about the sewage smell at Central Elementary.

Just Klean Inc. was hired to clean the sewage trap, according to Ragan. District bill documents indicate the service cost $2,862.50, and then the odor came back with the company coming back and forth because of the smell throughout the month.

Ragan said the sewage smell was at its worst on Nov. 14 and the work needed to be done immediately, as parents had started to take their kids out of school.

“In fact, there were people that called me up, and they laughed when I walked across the parking lot because it was so bad, and it hit me,” Ragan said. “It was unbelievable. It was in the building, it was in the principal’s office, it was going upstairs and at that point, I said, ‘We need to get this thing taken care of.’” At that point, Ragan said it would need to be an “emergency process,” and said that nobody said anything or asked any questions at the time.

Ragan said he went to the district’s solicitor at the time, John Rushford, and he agreed that it was OK to go forward with the work The sewage work was conducted over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and it was inspected by the county.

“I can’t answer how the contractor was picked,” Ragan said. “I didn’t do that, but it absolutely needed to be done, and it needed to be done that weekend.”

According to district billing documents, Reliable Pro Plumbing and Excavating, LLC, billed the district $47,295.25 for the emergency repair.

Despite Ragan’s explanation, some board members were still confused as to who deemed the project an emergency in the first place. Ragan repeated that he stated it was to be handled in an “emergency process.”

Newly elected board Director Daniel Novacek asked a Central Elementary teacher in the audience if this was an emergency, and many board members said, “This is not how this works.”

“If a decision has been made that this was an emergency by our financial director, then I support that and that’s fine,” Cummings said. “The reason why I am asking questions is not for interrogation reasons. I am trying to understand a little bit better because I have done my own research as well. I think the answer that I am looking for, and the rest of us are looking for is, who picked the contractor?”

After some discussion no one on the board or administration was able to figure out or admit who picked the contractor.

“I honestly do not know how the contractor was picked, but it was being done, it was being done on that Friday, and I was made aware of that,” Ragan said. “I saw the manholes being dropped off right before Thanksgiving, and I said I need to pay attention to what the hell is going on here because I want to watch the process. So I gave up my whole Thanksgiving weekend sitting up there, and watching what was going on.”

Board President Jamie Evans said issues like this were reasons for the board to look for a new solicitor. The board tabled a motion to hire a new solicitor.

Resident Dylan Altemara said the district should have an executive session because it seemed to him that somebody authorized spending on behalf of the school district, and most of the members of the board were not part of the conversation.

“I do educational staffing, and for the district that I work in, I have never heard of an outside vendor or contractor being brought in under the guise of whether its normal business or emergency business to do work, and there is not an established procedure of who contacted them, who gave them the OK, who authorized the payment,” said Altemara said. “That’s very, very suspect to me.”

Board Director Megan Ferraro asked if they could exclude the check items from the bill list until they had more information, and the whole board voted yes to tabling the motion for now.