Critics say Port Authority put cost ahead of employees' well-being, and say staff continue to work despite hazardous conditions
A control room are draped in plastic in the construction areas of the building. With the job far from finished, a $17.9 million project approved by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2007 for work on the Goethals Bridge administration and maintenance complex has ballooned to $28 million.
Much of the 56-percent increase, approved without discussion last month by the agency’s Board of Commissioners, was blamed by agency staff on a work stoppage that resulted from having to move employees into temporary quarters after they complained about exposure to toxins.
Critics say that, at the very least, the Goethals job is an example of a project spiraling out of control because the agency made a penny-wise decision with pound-foolish consequences. It tried to save money by keeping employees inside the facility while contracting work went on, only to end up moving them later when health concerns were raised. But mid-construction delay cost led to significant added costs.
Just for perspective’s sake, commuters would have to make 1.26 million round trips over the Goethals Bridge or one of the bi-state agency’s five other New York-New Jersey crossings, at $8 each, to pay for the $10.1 million increased cost of the job, which involves an upgrade of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system and replacement of the fire alarms and sprinklers in the complex.
Cost overruns are hardly unusual in public projects, and the Port Authority says it was fiscally and morally responsible in planning the project and responding to developments in the project.
“The administrative staff believed that the work could be done both safely and cost effectively, with staff in place — initially,” said a Port Authority spokesman, Ron Marsico. “Our staff raised concerns about the work, we listened to those concerns, we stopped the work for four months, and we moved staff out of the facility before the work resumed.”
But the expense of moving the employees may not be the project’s only added costs.
More than a dozen Port Authority police officers have filed workers compensation claims against the agency related to the work, with additional claims still to come, said their lawyer, Brian Campbell.
The claims say officers suffered respiratory and throat illnesses from exposure to asbestos particles, lead paint dust or other toxic substances released into the air and onto floors, walls and other surfaces at the complex. Campbell said the total dollar amount of the claims, filed with the New Jersey Division of Workers Compensation, could end up in the millions.
About 80 civilian and police employees work at the complex, which is located at the Goethals toll plaza on the Staten Island side. It serves as an administrative, maintenance and police command center for the Goethals and Bayonne Bridges and the Outerbridge Crossing, the Port Authority’s three spans linking Staten Island and New Jersey.
Marsico said preparatory work began in November 2007, followed by the start of construction in March 2008. Marsico said the work was halted in February 2009, and resumed four months later, after some police functions were transferred to a trailer in the Goethals parking lot, and several civilian vehicle maintenance employees were relocated to space at Newark Liberty International Airport.
But even now, officers say some staff continue to work inside the complex, and that despite measures like the installations of fans and tarps, hazardous conditions persist.
“To this day, you’ve got workers working in the ceiling, you’ve got all the fireproofing dust from the ceiling all over the floor,” said Jerome Crimi, a police officer stationed at the complex, where he is a delegate of the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association. “Your uniform would have dust all over it as you’re walking down the hall.”
To some, the Goethals project is a case of the agency’s putting cost ahead of its employees’ well being.'
“This is how they always act, it’s always a reaction, its never proactive,” said Campbell, who has represented hundreds of Port Authority employees in other workers compensation claims. “You have people getting sick. It’s more disruptive to their own business. And they just don’t seem to care.”
Marsico rejected any assertion that the Port Authority put its employees below its bottom line.
“There was testing done that testing showed there were no risks to employees’ health,” Marsico said. “Nevertheless, our employees showed concern and we addressed those concerns by moving the workers out of the building.”
Whatever concerns the Port Authority had for its employees, the episode raises questions about the project’s handling, said Steve Carrellas, New Jersey’s representative of the National Motorists Association, a commuter advocacy group.
“It makes you wonder,” Carellas said. “Are we having to pay inflated tolls for what’s seemingly poor management?”
Port Authority commissioners approved the project’s increased cost at a meeting on June 22, on the recommendation of its Construction Committee, chaired by Commissioner Anthony Sartor in absence of committee chairman Raymond M. Pocino.
Sartor and others had been briefed on the increased cost during a committee meeting earlier that day by Victoria Cross Kelly, the Port Authority’s director of bridges, tunnels and terminals. The increase raised eyebrows even then.
“It seems to me that everything that could have gone wrong went wrong,” Commissioner Virginia S. Bauer said during the committee meeting.
Kelly assured the committee that employees had been told of the work ahead of time and had not expressed their concerns before work began. Asked why employees would have raised concerns only after the work did begin, she said, “it’s one thing to hear about it, it’s another to live through it.”
Kelly was contrite during the briefing, and she promised the project would be complete by mid-2011. She also assured the committee that the agency had learned several lessons from the incident, including the need to assess a project’s impact on agency operations and employees before allowing work to begin.
“What we didn’t really realize was the extent to which staff might have been concerned with the presence of hazardous materials,” Kelly said.
Police union officials, however, say they did express their concerns about the work before the start of construction, but that those concerns were ignored. One example was a grievance filed on Jan. 25, 2008.
“The construction in this building is a long term problem which will cause a hazard for Police Officers,” read the grievance, signed by then-PBA President Gus Danese and submitted to the Port Authority Police superintendent at the time, Samuel Plumeri.
In her briefing to the committee, Kelly said additional costs of the job included increases billed by Yonkers Electric after the contract was awarded three years ago, plus a $1 million claim by the contractor for lost business resulting from suspension of the Goethals job. She said another $5 million in increases involved what she referred to only as “staff time and staff work,” associated with moving the employees.
Sartor asked Kelly for a breakdown of the $5 million in staff costs, and after she assured him he would get one, he moved that the committee recommend that the full board of commissioners authorize the project’s cost increase. The board did just that without any discussion.
Sartor’s fellow construction committee member, Bauer, said the approval of such a dramatic cost increase despite the limited accounting by agency staff should by no means suggest that commissioners take their oversight responsibility lightly.
“This is a very active and engaged board,” Bauer said. “We don’t rubber stamp anything.”