The budget season is now officially upon us as Director of Public Works, Hal Alvord, previews his presentation to the public works committee of the common council. From the Hour:

To alleviate flooding, Director of Public Works Harold F. Alvord is asking to sink an additional $1.95 million into drainage maintenance during the fiscal year starting next July 1.

Tonight, Alvord will brief the Common Council’s Public Works Committee on his 2008-09 operating budget request. At $19.6 million, his submitted budget is up nearly 20 percent from 2007-08 spending.

Much of the additional $3.3 million is targeted toward dredging and cleaning drainage pipes.

“In the current fiscal year, the city employed a pipe-clearing contractor with broad success; there are, however, more blocked pipes to be cleared (and) $200,000 of the requested amount will (be) committed to a continued pipe-clearing effort,” wrote Alvord in a memorandum to the committee. “The additional $2 million will be committed to beginning the expansive task of maintenance dredging of the watercourses that are integral to the city’s storm drainage system.”

Those watercourses, Alvord told The Hour, include Stony Brook and Norwalk River.

All this should kind of be familiar because this is the exact same thing he asked for in March 2007:

Now a series of questions about pipes and if they are blocked or unblocked. The sanitary system is a closed system and smaller pipers. Storm drainage, has specific issues. You may not know until you get into the pipe what you have to do (light cleaning, heavy cleaning or a bulldozer) So they have complicated contracts with many pay lines need to have checkpoints (if you encounter this you are authorized to do X, Y and Z , but do not pass GO, and not collect $200.)A typical line of questioning is paraphrased here:

Mayor :$226k what was that? Repairing drain lines. Under general drainage. Capital project so it may carry over form previous years.

Wilms: How soon will you begin work?

Alvord: “As soon as low bid selected, work can proceed.”

Wilms: What areas, the recent flood areas?

Alvord: Not same areas that Tigh and Bond study done.

Wilms: Why Not?

Alvord: Those pipes are clean. They are as clean as a whistle. They are just not big enough. Fitch street sediment need to be cleaned near retention pond, and that’s on the contract out for bid now.

Mayor: Recommends that money recommend in the capital budget be kept in. “We have spent money on storm drainage but we do have money in current accounts, which has not yet been spent.”

Alvord: Not sure what projects you are talking about.

Tom Hamilton: Storm drainage 02-03 capital allocation still available.

Mayor: Is that committed to a specific project or is it available?

Wilms: $279k still available, can you provide a list of storm drains you plan to clear? And for the next year as well?

Alvord: Yes, but Tigh and Bond ecumberance money wonn’t be available. (5258 object code)

Wilms: 9 moths completed and you are spending the $350k in the last 3 months. Are you going to wait like you did this time?

Alvord: Assuming a good bid, they can do a change order on the existing contract, with council approval, can be done in a month.

Wilms: Trucks on order; 1 or 2?

Alvord: Just took delivery on one truck last week.

Wims: What will trucks be doing?

Alvord: The pipe clearing contract is to clear blockages from pipes. That’s equipment that the city doesn’t have, and won’t have. The vacuum trucks will provide us with the capability to clean catch basins and man holes and space between catch basins and man holes. Routine sedimentation that you have year to year. City will have the ability to maintain the system once the blockages and collapses are fixed. Contractors are not cleaning out catch basins. City needs 4 trucks, 3 are 15 years old. At any given time they one is broken. You run out of places to weld, debris tank is the issue, high wear here. In September other truck coming in.

Mayor: So if they are that bad, why not ask for 4

Alvord: We have one, one is coming so we need 2.

And that exemplifies the night in general. Does the BOE go through this process at least internally?

Alvord then went on to explain that they are creative in how they find free stuff, grants and other ways to find revenues. Of course, that’s how financial presentations are supposed to be done. BOE?????

And those vacuum trucks that were ordered and supposedly taken care of in last year’s budget?

Dealing with the needs of the city’s storm drainage system, Alvord wrote, involves capital projects, purchasing vacuum trucks, hiring additional staff, clearing pipes, and dredging of watercourses and retention ponds. The public works department must outsource dredging and pipe-cleaning work, according to Alvord.

“The city has no capability to accomplish either of these crucial tasks with in-house resources,” Alvord wrote.

In past years, Alvord has requested double-digit increases in spending to perform services, which a department analysis concluded are mandated by City Charter, ordinance and state law.

So the pipes in March were clean as a whistle, and now they are not. How can that be? The big question for me is whether anyone on the committee will delve into the inconsistencies in testimony that is now on the record at least here. The issue of pipes, sewer and storm drainage issues goes back to 2002. The city has been punting on this issue for a number of years. The budget games that are clearly being played here have got to stop, and a data driven assessment of what is really needed, what has really been spent, and what has really been fixed thus far is sorely needed.

source: The Hour, DPW chief proposes $2M more to tackle flooding, by Robert Koch, December 4, 2007.