Marblehead school officials revising change order protocol

MARBLEHEAD – New Superintendent Greg Maass and his Interim School Business Manager Kevin Meagher are making sure that the mistakes of a past school building committee are not repeated.The administrators are writing a new change order protocol for the Glover School Building Committee and any future building committees.In Maass’ proposal he will be in charge of change orders under $25,000, with the requirement that he report the change order and his action to the School Building Committee and School Committee.On change orders over $25,000 he will bring the facts to the School Building Committee, which will recommend action to the School Committee. The School Committee will vote on the recommendation, giving them the final say.Maass told the School Building Committee Wednesday evening, "I’m not a change order guy. If we design and scope the project well we should have (everything) pretty well defined." He said he would make an exception in an emergency.Pressed to give an example by new Glover Committee member Barbara Anderson, Maass recalled a project which ran into a sinkhole. Co-Chairman Dick Nohelty said the building committee will make sure any change order falls within the scope of the contingency fund.The new protocol is being created in response to the Marblehead Village School Building Committee. When the $11 million project came in under budget the building committee added an estimated $5 million in last-minute change order improvements. The Massachusetts School Building Authority is only reimbursing the town for $1.1 million of the total, the amount of the project contingency fund, and the remaining $4 million will come from the bond issue that funded the project. The situation prompted a critical letter from MSBA Director of Capital Planning Mary Pichetti, who later told Maass that Marblehead was the first community state-wide to be critical of Municipal Building Consultants Inc.The $25.4 million Glover School has a $1.08 million contingency fund. MBC consultants Patrick Saitta, owner’s project manager for the Glover, and Charles "Chuck" Adams, project manager, attended Wednesday’s meeting. They worked in the same capacities on the Village School project.Anderson laughed at her roster designation as "Taxpayer Advocate," but she had a number of questions for Saitta and Maass.Maass and Nohelty, who also serves on the School Committee, assured her that "roles and responsibilities" would be defined and communication would improve."We (the School Committee) went for months without a report from the Village Committee," Nohelty said. "That’s not going to happen."Anderson said at one point that Saitta’s explanation of the way the MSBA rules on reimbursements made "perfect sense" to her. She said in the past school project advocates have always said a project will be reimbursed without ever discussing any exceptions and the Village School situation made "taxpayers feel upset.""That’s why you’re on this committee," Nohelty told her.