A state panel that supervises school construction said yesterday that it will examine cost overruns at Cranberry Station Elementary, where Carroll County school officials are cutting corners to pay for a project that is $1.7 million over budget.

"I don't know what has happened to increase prices," said Yale Stenzler, executive director of the Maryland Interagency Committee on School Construction. "We've requested some information to have a better idea of what's transpiring."

County Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge criticized the Board of Education's management of construction projects and suggested transferring those responsibilities from school officials to the county government.

"I have concerns that there have been consistent overruns when they build something," she said. "It's not right. If you went back and looked at all the schools built over seven or eight years, every one has had an overrun."

The questions surrounding Cranberry Station followed an article published Sunday in The Sun, which found that the bulk of the Westminster school's 20 percent cost overrun stems from Carroll County school officials' relentless pursuit of an apology from the man they hired to build it, James W. Ancel.

The demand, made after a relatively common dispute over rock removal at the site, prompted Ancel to terminate his contract and led to the ballooning costs.

Stenzler said he requested from Carroll school officials an accounting of construction costs and changes made to the building to reduce overruns -- such as thinner roofing material and fewer play areas.

Stenzler declined to discuss problems between Carroll school officials and Ancel, but he said it was unusual for a contractor and a school board to split during a construction project.

"In my 26 or 27 years [in school construction], only a dozen have been terminated," he said.

Seeking state money

The county is seeking reimbursement from the state for a portion of the school's costs, which have grown to $10.5 million -- including $800,000 in furniture, architecture and engineering costs. Stenzler said he did not know if the overruns and other problems at Cranberry Station would affect the reimbursement process.

"It depends on what surfaces," he said.

Gouge said the cuts in the construction project -- which school officials said will increase long-term maintenance costs -- will create a "nightmare down the road for other boards," she said.

Gouge also said she was unaware of many of the school problems because school officials had sealed all the information and costs related to the break-up with Ancel.

"I don't know why it's sealed," she said. "They are using taxpayers' money."

The commissioner also questioned the school board practice of taking money from one school construction project to pay for another. In the case of Cranberry Station, school officials pulled more than $900,000 from other construction projects. Gouge said such practices make it difficult to know the cost of the school. "You never know where one ends and another begins," she said.

In asking for county government control of school construction, Gouge said county engineers and construction experts understand contracts and could handle the demands of managing multimillion-dollar projects.

But School Board President Gary W. Bauer said yesterday that he sees no need to shift school construction responsibilities to the county government.

"I think we have people on board who can do just as well as people on their staff. ," he said. "There has been a whole restructuring. We are no longer hiring general contractors. We are doing the work ourselves. We don't have general contractors as a way of stopping overruns from occurring."

When reminded that Cranberry Station Elementary was $1.7 million over budget under the direct management of the Board of Education -- not a general contractor -- Bauer replied: "True."

Bauer declined to comment further on the overruns, but he defended the Board of Education's demand for an apology from Ancel.

"They are probably correct in what they did," he said.

James Harris, a former county commissioner candidate who raised questions about Cranberry Station during the elections, criticized yesterday the board's behavior toward Ancel.

"They need to grow up and become adults," he said. "That's a childish reaction to a problem. I think if an apology is due, it's due to Ancel."

Costly actions

Ancel's departure had costly consequences. School officials paid Ancel $1.17 million to walk away. Then they scrambled to pull the project together, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more than expected for construction work because of tight deadlines and market conditions. The school is scheduled to open in August.

Harris said the Board of Education could avoid such problems if it didn't use former teachers to manage multimillion-dollar construction projects.

"A teacher has a place, but you don't put them in construction," he said. "It's like hiring me to teach Spanish. I know three words. That would be like hiring a teacher to do construction work. It's equally ridiculous."

Pub Date: 3/02/99