School Districts and Town Provided Dump Sites Worth Million to Construction Firms and, Instead of Free Fields, Were Left with .8 Million in Costs
Audit Faults ‘Fill For Fields' Projects
In Eastchester, Greenburgh and Valhalla Schools, Town of Eastchester
Goodwill Sports Association Initiated Schemes
Four “fill-for-fields” deals in Westchester which bartered dumping of construction debris on public land in return for free athletic field improvements were a windfall for the construction companies that saved as much as .4 million in dumping fees, but a disaster for taxpayers who must pay nearly .8 million to finance the “free” fields and address resulting environmental and other problems after the projects went awry, according to an audit released today by State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi.
Hevesi issued the audit at a news conference at Haindl Park in Eastchester, one of the dumping sites, where he was joined by Eastchester Town Supervisor Anthony Colavita.
Comptroller's auditors determined that the Eastchester, Greenburgh #7 and Valhalla school districts and the Town of Eastchester violated established laws and regulations when they made deals initiated by the Goodwill Sports and Education Association (GSA):
- The three school districts did not obtain taxpayer approval, comply with competitive bidding requirements in State law or obtain needed approval from State agencies.
- The town also did not follow competitive bidding requirements in State law.
- All failed to obtain the permits required to accept dumping of construction debris.Some of the promised sports fields are still incomplete and unusable, and completion, remediation and other expenses will cost taxpayers of the three districts and the town nearly $ 3. 8 million. School officials disagreed with the findings of the audit, while Eastchester Town officials accepted the audit findings.
“These schemes turned out to be nothing more than a huge ripoff. Instead of free fields, taxpayers will end up paying millions to make the facilities safe and usable. None of these deals could have happened if school and town officials had not violated applicable laws and regulations,” Hevesi said. “This is a textbook case of ‘if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.' The end result is exactly what officials were trying to avoid increased costs for taxpayers.”
“The Town of Eastchester has signed a consent order with the Department of Environmental Conservation to clean up the park where fill was dumped, and we now expect the cost to be more than million,” Colavita said. “This is a problem that I am committed to solving, even though I inherited it from the previous Town administration. We will also aggressively pursue legal action so that we can ultimately ease the burden on taxpayers created by the fill-for-fields scandal.”
Three School Districts, One Town, Four Different Deals Initiated by GSA
Goodwill is a non-profit established in Yonkers in 1993. In printed materials from 2002, GSA said that it hoped to create a “synthetic grass multi-use sports complex” in “every school district and community in New York State,” and asked for financial support from the corporate, private and public sectors.
GSA approached each of the school districts and the Town separately in 2002. The exact terms of each fill-for-fields deal were different, but all involved a promise to install artificial turf fields or complete other renovations of sports fields at no charge in exchange for accepting construction and demolition debris. GSA explained that the funds that would have been paid by construction companies to dump this material at licensed landfills, referred to as tipping charges, would instead go to the artificial turf fields projects.
However, GSA did not complete the no-charge artificial turf fields as promised. In two of the projects, Greenburgh #7 and Valhalla two of the projects , names please , GSA said it ran out of money and the schools had to pay for the “free” fields. The other two projects , at the Eastchester school district and the Town of Eastchester , were halted after environmental concerns were raised.
Construction and demolition debris is defined in State law as “uncontaminated solid waste resulting from the construction, remodeling, repair and demolition of utilities, structures, roadsand] land clearing” and can include soil, rock, concrete, wood and certain other building materials. A total of 669,000 cubic yards of material was dumped at sites at the three schools and the Town park. Auditors found that the tipping charges would have been between and per cubic yard, for a total of between .4 and .4 million.
In Greenburgh, GSA proposed to replace an existing football field with artificial turf and renovate a practice field by adding fill and artificial turf covering, all at no cost to the school district. The project was started without documents that would have protected the school district, including a written agreement between the district and the contractors, signed and sealed engineers' drawings, and a surety bond for completion. Before the work was done, GSA told the school district that it had run out of funds to finish the project.
The district then financed the final steps in the renovation of the football field through a ,524 lease agreement, and that part of the project was completed. Greenburgh abdicated control of the project by allowing GSA to choose the lease financing company. Moreover, auditors determined that the lease agreement was impermissible because the school district had failed to solicit competitive bids for the financing, as required by law. The project should also have been subject to voter approval.
The artificial turf football field had been in use until last month, when school administrators closed it. Despite the fact that the District superintendent's February 2005 written response to the audit stated that the artificial turf lease agreement had been reviewed and supported by legal counsel, other legal counsel for the District informed the leasing company in July 2005 that the lease agreement was in violation of state statute and was therefore terminated.
The work on the practice field has not been completed. A total of 200,000 cubic yards of construction debris was dumped on Greenburgh school district property.
In Valhalla, GSA proposed installing an artificial turf field on the existing middle school/high school competition field, and dumping construction materials on other school district property in order to “create funding” for the field renovations. GSA also proposed constructing a baseball field at the Kensico School by filling a sloped area with construction debris and adding a natural grass surface. The middle school/high school field was completed, but only after the district entered into a ,943 lease agreement for the artificial turf arranged by GSA after the non-profit group ran out of money. The District initially chose not to use the Kensico School field, but has since decided to open the field. A total of 90,000 cubic yards of construction debris was dumped on Valhalla school district property.
“GSA used a classic ‘bait and switch' tactic: After Greenburgh and Valhalla agreed to the deals and accepted the dumped materials, GSA informed them that there was no funding available for the free fields,” Hevesi said. “Then GSA was ready with a ‘solution' a lease agreement for the artificial turf from a company it suggested. But that solution turned out to be a violation of State law because of the financing structure and because it was not competitively bid, and GSA should have known this.”
The Eastchester school district agreed to accept construction debris in exchange for renovation of natural grass sports fields at the Anne M. Hutchinson School and the Greenvale School and the middle school/high school football field. At the time of the audit, the fields were not in use and remediation was underway; they are now open. An artificial turf soccer field located at the middle school/high school was competitively bid as required by law, completed and is currently in use. However, the ,130 lease agreement is in violation of State law, because it should have treated as an installment purchase rather than an equipment lease and therefore been placed before District voters for approval. A total of 250,000 cubic yards of construction debris was dumped on Eastchester school district property.
The Town of Eastchester entered into a deal similar to the Eastchester school district, accepting construction debris on the athletic field located in the Town's Haindl Recreation Park which is adjacent to the fill-for-fields site at Greenvale School in exchange for a no-cost renovation of the field. After environmental questions were raised about the materials being deposited at the site, dumping was halted. The Town is currently working on remediation at the site. A total of 129,000 cubic yards of construction debris was dumped on town property.
“GSA acted irresponsibly at best and unethically at worst by approaching school districts and townswith the fill-for-fields deals, failing to inform them about relevant State laws and regulations, and then failing to deliver the promised free athletic fields,” Hevesi said.
Environmental and Other Problems Lead to Increased Costs for Taxpayers
State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regulations stipulate that construction and demolition debris must be disposed of at authorized facilities with DEC permits. State law does allow construction companies to dump certain types of debris including uncontaminated concrete, asphalt pavement, brick, glass, soil and rocks at sites that do not have DEC permits, but only if the dumping is for fill purposes and only if the property owners do not receive a fee or any other consideration.
Auditors determined that the fill-for-fields deals led to what were essentially unregulated illegal landfill sites, because the school districts and the Town had agreed to accept the dumped materials in exchange for athletic field renovations. If the fill-for-fields deals had been undertaken in accordance with State laws and regulations, the school districts and the town would also have had to obtain a permit from DEC, which entails completing the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) process to determine the environmental impact of the dumping and providing extensive information about the project to DEC as well as local residents. Auditors noted that the SEQRA review and permitting process can be both lengthy and costly.
After receiving complaints from residents in Eastchester, DEC investigated the school district field renovation work there and issued violations for unlicensed dumping. The soil was tested for contaminants, and was found to contain an elevated concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, potential cancer-causing agents that are found in coal tar, creosote, roofing tar and other substances. DEC is requiring the school district to implement a range of remedial actions that are estimated to cost taxpayers at least ,000.
Dirt haulers agreed to provide documentation that construction debris dumped at the Town of Eastchester's Haindl Park would be “clean and pollution-free.” The documentation was never provided, and after a DEC inspection found non-approved materials in the dumped debris, the agency ordered the dirt haulers to cease operations at the site. Subsequently, the town agreed to clean the site and install and maintain a non-permeable cap. The town recently decided to obtain long-term financing for what is expected to be more than million in remediation work costs at the site.
The DEC also identified storm water runoff issues in Greenburgh and was unable to determine the safety of the dumped materials in Valhalla. Auditors noted that, had the districts followed DEC regulations from the start, these environmental problems could likely have been avoided.
Auditors also found that the school district projects did not have the appropriate permits from the State Education Department (SED). Officials from each school district maintained that SED advised them that they did not need permits because the field renovation projects amounted to site work rather than capital construction. However, officials were unable to provide auditors with any written documentation indicating that SED understood the extensive scope of the projects or confirming that the projects qualified as site work. Auditors determined that the projects were, in fact, capital construction, and, therefore, should also have been placed before voters for approval in accordance with State law.
Public works contracts valued at ,000 or more and school district contracts valued at ,000 or more must be awarded through competitive bidding, even if they do not involve direct cash outlays. Auditors found that officials in the town and the three school districts violated the law by not awarding the initial projects and the later lease agreements through the competitive bidding process. Auditors also noted that the Greenburgh and Eastchester School District leases included labor costs that render them public works contracts. Under State law, such contracts cannot be financed with the type of lease agreements used by the districts. In addition, auditors determined that all three lease agreements should have been classified as installment purchases and therefore should been placed before voters for approval.
“We are aware that funding athletic field improvements to accommodate increasing participation in school sports is one of the many challenges school boards and administrators face today, but it is irresponsible and unacceptable to violate State law and create environmental hazards to achieve this goal,” Hevesi said.
In a written response to the audit, Colavita outlined actions being taken by the Town of Eastchester to address environmental problems and said that the Town would “exhaust all avenues to bring the persons and entities responsible for this significant problem to justice.”
The Greenburgh School Superintendent maintained that the district acted “in good faith” in all of the actions taken relative to the field renovation project based on prior experience with GSA and on the information the district received from SED and from legal counsel.
The Eastchester School Superintendent maintained that only “clean” fill was deposited at sites in the district, and suggested that auditors had overstated the seriousness of the environmental and SED compliance issues.
The Valhalla response, submitted by legal counsel representing the district, maintained that the cost of the renovated fields was “reasonable” and maintained that competitive bidding for the lease of the artificial turf was not required because the turf was made from recycled materials.
Complete responses from the three school districts and the town are included in the audit.
The findings of the audit have been referred to the office of the state Attorney General.
Click here for copy of audit report.
Status Update of Athletic Fields in "Fill-for-Fields" Deals.
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