Lawmakers begin consideration of $139 million for school construction

State lawmakers began consideration Monday of the latest round of funding for school construction projects across Connecticut, in addition to some of the lingering fallout from the departure of former school construction chief Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis.

The school construction program, which reimburses school districts for a portion of the costs to build and renovate school buildings, is anticipating spending more than $139 million on nine projects next year, according to legislation before the Education Committee.

Legislative authorization for that funding, however, comes as lawmakers are simultaneously scrutinizing Diamantis’ six-year tenure atop the Office of School Construction Grants and Review, which ended abruptly last October amid allegations of misconduct.

Both state and local officials have since accused Diamantis of disregarding the law and department policies while pressuring school officials to use certain contractors on projects — allegations that Diamantis has consistently rebuffed as part of an effort to smear his reputation.

In February, it was revealed that federal investigators are also looking into Diamantis’ handling of the school construction work.

Few of those issues were raised explicitly Monday, however, as lawmakers resumed their annual process of reviewing the millions of dollars the state spends on school construction.

“What I learned in the last year with regard to school construction is there’s not a lot of effort that has been made around equity,” Education co-chair Sen. Doug McCrory, DHartford. “It’s very troubling, extremely troubling, that opportunity does not exist for everyone in this state with regards to school construction.”

Among the projects slated to receive funding from this year’s round of grants are the $258 million construction of a new Westhill High School in Stamford, a $17 million addition to Hamden Middle School and the $15 million renovation of Pumpkin Delight Elementary School in Milford.

The issue of Diamantis’ initial handling of those projects was raised with respect to the $131 million construction of a new high school in Farmington, which state officials determined in December was eligible for a smaller state reimbursement than the amount initially promised by Diamantis.

State Sen. Derek Slap, DWest Hartford, said Monday that he and other lawmakers representing Farmington would seek to increase Farmington’s reimbursement by around $915,000 to make up for the discrepancy.

“I think everybody has skin in the game here because we want to make sure that the state honors its promises to its towns.” Slap said.

Both McCrory and his co-chair on the Education Committee, state Rep. Bobby

Sanchez, D- New Britain, seemed to be in agreement that concessions would have to be made to Farmington.

“We will be working on something, because a promise was made and a promise needs to be kept,” Sanchez said.

In addition to the overall funding for the project, the committee also considered a related measure on Monday proposing various administrative changes to the school construction program.

One issue dating to Diamantis’ tenure that the legislation seeks to address is a 2019 law he supported to allow construction management firms hired to oversee projects to selfperform some of the work rather than hiring subcontractors. That law sparked pushback from the construction industry, which was able to delay the implementation of the new rule until this July.

Instead of the law going into effect this year, however, the Department of Administrative Services proposed scrapping the plan altogether and prohibiting self-performance work.

Another change proposed by the legislation before the Education Committee would require that any school projects receiving state reimbursements feature at least one window built into every classroom to allow children to escape during an emergency.

The committee did not vote on either of the two bills related to the school construction office on Monday. The deadline for the committee to do so is Monday, March 28.