Burlington officials probably need to take down a few names of consultants who have misled them. And not call on them for advice ever again!
At the top of that list should be those who woefully underestimated the cost for two of the bond projects that Burlington officials asked the voters to approve last November.
The voters approved two bond referendum questions – one for streets and sidewalk improvements ($21.5 million) and another for recreation projects ($47 million).
Voters narrowly approved the recreation bonds, by just 255 votes (about one percentage point), while overwhelmingly endorsing the streets and sidewalk bonds (by almost 15 percentage points).
In the case of the recreation bonds, city officials indicated the projects would include a replacement of the structure over what had been an indoor pool at the Maynard Aquatic Center. Deterioration in the structure led city officials to decide to remove the pool enclosure structure in 2024. So since last summer, it has operated only as an outdoor pool.
The city supposedly relied on consultants who had told the city it would cost about $6 million to replace the structure and that’s the figure on which the city relied in putting together the $47 million recreation bond package.
In a recent round of bidding, now that it’s time to do the actual work, the figure came in at twice as much, $12 million.
Similarly, another recreation project to expand the Paramount Theater (again) was estimated at $11 million. But those estimates have also come in significantly higher – although “only” one-third higher, at $14.6 million.
So the expenses associated with projects that were supposedly going to cost $17 million have come in $9.6 million higher, at a combined total of $26.6 million.
Two laughably unrealistic explanations for these soaring costs were given by city officials this week. Finance director Peggy Reece tried to lay at least part of the blame for the aquatic center’s cost increase on tariffs – which she might not have noticed, have not fully even gone into effect, yet. Perhaps a bit of honesty crept in from city manager Craig Honeycutt’s admission that the previous estimate on cost was largely fictional, our description, not his.
His words: “We didn’t have true construction [costs for the aquatic center], because we had to get a figure very quickly [for last year’s bond referendum], and that was the only figure we had.”
The good news is that the city council decided to slow down a bit this week, and voted this week not to proceed with issuing the bonds for the two recreation projects, which would have been inadequate to fund them anyway.
Frankly, the council should probably have slowed down last year, before it rushed these projects onto the ballot – without being more certain of the cost parameters, as Honeycutt acknowledged.
Still to come, which we expect to have an even more astronomical spike in costs, is the largest project within the recreation package, a so-called West Burlington sportsplex, that was estimated to cost $30 million.
That figure was totally arbitrary, without any actual or even supposedly objective cost estimates.
The city’s original estimate of $25 million was arbitrarily hiked to $30 million just before the council finalized the financial parameters of the two bond packages.
Back to the glimmer of good news. The council doesn’t have to move forward with these projects.
The voters authorized the projects (in the one case very narrowly), but the council is not obligated to follow through, particularly if they cannot be achieved at the price levels voters were told.
Even if the council does want to pursue them, it has a long runway of seven years to do so, based on state law.
Burlington’s city officials, and particularly its city council, should be far more attentive and cautious about proceeding on some of these financial matters without having more solid figures.
And they need to slow down before committing themselves, and their taxpayers, to yet more spending.
