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Sewer Expansion Cost Overrun

Once more voters were asked to approve more spending for the Allenstown Sewer Expansion Project, originally approved by voters on June 13, 2009 at a cost of about $1.625 million. The project incurred an excess cost of $1.26 million because neither the project manager, Hoyle and Tanner Associates Inc., nor the construction vendor, Cambridge Water Technologies (CWT), anticipated or expected all the difficulties involved.

Contributing to the excess cost was the fact that this expansion involved technology that was being tried for the first time in a municipality. Allenstown voters did not realize they were guinea pigs for a very expensive experiment. Somehow, the Big Dig in Boston comes to mind.

At the Jan. 17 Selectmen's meeting (attended by the Budget Committee and others), when the selectmen asked Sewer Commissioner, James Rodger, when he first knew of the financial problem, he said it was around June 2010. The selectmen were apparently kept out of the loop and did not learn of the problem until early January 2011 (about six months later) at a meeting to review the Sewer Bond Warrant Article.

The selectmen also asked if this had been a "cost plus" project or not. Mr. Rodger said no, the $1.625 million was supposed to be the total cost as estimated by the engineering and construction firms.

Selectmen and several Budget Committee members expressed strong disapproval of the way this project was managed. Some might say this project was grossly mismanaged and that the sewer commissioners failed to keep the project within budget, failed to notify the selectmen when they knew there was a big problem, and created a bad situation that will have a negative impact on voters at the March elections.

Fortunately for Allenstown sewer rate payers, about $900,000 was absorbed by CWT, leaving $360,000 for Allenstown to cover. Warrant Article 16 proposed to pay for this cost overrun by obtaining half the funds from Federal Stimulus (ARRA) funds and half from the Sewer Department's Septic Surplus Capital Reserve Fund.

Selectman Tardiff pointedly asked Mr. Rodger at the Jan. 17 meeting if he would guarantee that, if the article failed, the Sewer Dept. would pay for the whole amount so that there would be no increase in the sewer rate. Mr. Rodger said "yes."

Aside from the question of whether the voters will approve this warrant article, there is the larger question, should there be a public investigation of the sewer commissioners' actions in this matter? There has been some talk about asking the commissioners to resign but that may be a little premature.

It should not be considered indelicate on the one hand or vindictive on the other to want to learn the truth about what happened. The taxpayers, after all, put their trust in their elected officials to do what it right and to be careful about how they spend tax dollars. This is especially important during this severe economic recession with 10% or more unemployment and with homeowners facing tax liens on their homes or, worse yet, foreclosures.

This may be the time to give each sewer commissioner a poster stating that "Failure to Communicate Is Not An Option" (borrowing from the Apollo 13 movie). That failure is possibly at the heart of the sewer expansion cost overrun. The best thing that can be done is to determine how it happened and then for the town leadership to promise the taxpayers not to repeat those same costly mistakes.

Hooksett Banner story, 1/13/2011 (text)

Hooksett Banner story, 1/13/2011, page 1 (PDF)

Hooksett Banner story, 1/13/2011, page 8 (PDF)

Hooksett Banner story, 1/20/2011 (text)

Hooksett Banner story, 1/20/2011, page 1 (PDF)

Hooksett Banner story, 1/20/2011, page 8 (PDF)

Feedback from Mike Trainque, 3/6/2012