Air-Conditioning Installation at Schools Delayed

Los Angeles school officials said Friday the installation of air conditioning in 54 of the hottest schools--mostly in the San Fernando Valley--will be delayed from October to January.

The Los Angeles Unified School District will complete air conditioning in 87 schools by the September deadline, said Erik Nasarenko, spokesman for the the district’s Facilities Services Division.

Nasarenko blamed the delay, which will put thousands of students through another uncomfortable fall, on several factors, including the manufacturers’ inability to meet district specifications and suspension of the work twice for negotiations with private firms seeking a share of the roughly $200-million job.

The timetable for providing air conditioning to about 300 schools has been a source of discord since voters approved a $2.4-billion school repair and improvement bond in April 1997.

School officials began some installations almost immediately after the vote, but initially planned to spread the work over about five years. Complaints from Valley business leaders prodded school officials to push the schedule up to only three years.

The Energy Alliance, a venture headed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, then stepped in with a plan to complete all 300 schools in about 15 months at a lower cost.

The proposal, which was dubbed “fast track,” set off a grueling bidding competition amid constant complaints from a volunteer oversight committee that district employees were trying to monopolize the work.

A winner was finally selected in December, but seven months of negotiations followed. The Los Angeles Board of Education is now scheduled to vote Tuesday on a contract with a joint venture known as PG&E;/CH2M Hill.

The firm will install air conditioning in about 160 low-priority schools, which are in cooler areas or already have climate control systems in most classrooms.

The 141 high-priority schools--those in hot areas or on year-round schedules--will continue to be part of the contract with 3DI-O’Brien Kreitzberg Inc., the construction management firm hired by the district to oversee the bulk of the school bond repairs.

In a July 8 memo to district administrators, Paul Holmes, deputy program manager for the company, cited 11 causes of the delay.

First, he said, was suspension of work for about five weeks last fall and another six weeks this past winter during negotiations on the outside contract. Also, he said, the bulk-purchasing process was slow getting started because criteria were needed for special types of air-conditioning units.

Confusion among project managers and the inability of manufacturers to meet school district specifications on noise were also factors, Holmes said.

Some air-conditioning units that have already been installed failed to meet those specifications and will have to be replaced or repaired, district officials said.