This whole business sounds shady. As the School System and County budgets face enormous cuts; how can overpaying Ancel be a valid decision. I wonder what kind of oversight goes into making such a decision; and question if there will be further investigation.

I read wtih interest and a sense of dismay Liz Bowie's article, "Addition to school to cost millions more" and thought why am I not surprised. I am sure the Baltimore County taxpayers must be relieved that Michael Sines, executive director of physical facilities will now 'change its internal oversight procedures ' in light of the 7.6 million dollar mistake at Milford Mill High School. With talk of teacher evaluations being determined by student achievement I was wondering if Mr. Sines' evaluation is tied to the number of mistakes that his office makes in school construction. I thought it was very interesting the Mr. Hines, the president of the school board was "comfortable with the decision" to over pay Mr. Ancel for work not completed. I got to thinking --- was Mr. Hines and the school board "comfortable with the decision" to get rid of all Mac labs and reinvest in Dell computers when Dr. Hairston first became Superintendent? Was Mr. Hines and the school board "comfortable with the decision" Dr. Hairston made to pay Barbara Dezmon for AIM when Baltimore County teachers worked on county time to write the program? Were they "comfortable with the decision" Dr. Hairston made to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for the "little brown book" for every school regardless of the fact that it is a teacher manual not written for students? Were they "comfortable with the decision" Dr.Hairston made to over order Literature Anthologies for grades 6 -8 for every school. Now, those addtitional books sit in boxes unused and with no where to store them in the schools? Springboard workbooks were over ordered for each school as well and what about the thousands of additional Benchmark BCR scantron sheets that are sitting in schools unused and that will go off to the shredder at the end of the school year? How about the money that is being spent on the oversize Assesstrax scantron forms that are numbered for over 100 questions for tests that have 15 - 30 questions tops? Why does the county pay Edutrax/Assesstrax to print the same test questions each year instead of using them again year after year since the test questions never change? How about the $70.00 plus grade 6 and 7 World Cultures textbooks that were ordered for every student when the book does not align itself well with the curriculum? Was the school board "comfortable" with these decisions of wasting the money that taxpayers give to the Baltimore County Public Schools? Will they be "comfortable" with finding ways to cut the budget and finding those cuts in teacher salaries, pension and health care changes?

I am writing as a concerned general contractor and a taxpayer of Baltimore County. First, I would like to comment on Mr. Sines’ statement regarding the county will make certain not to” front-end load” payments for construction work, to ensure contractors don’t get a large percentage of a project’s payout in the first months on the job. First, I would like to know what Mr. Sines’ background is regarding construction and the IAC billing required by the State of Maryland. I know he previously was a teacher, so that does not qualify him to speak on this subject. Second, I know from past experience and current experience with Baltimore County Public Schools, that most contractors cannot “front-end load” their projects unless they are billing for stored material on their projects. A contractor is permitted to bill for material they purchase for that project as long as they provide with the bill, copies of the invoices showing the cost of the material. The material needs to be stored on-site (at the school) or if it is stored off-site, then the contractor needs to provide the county with a certificate of insurance showing Baltimore County Public Schools as the insurer. Second, did Ancel submit his requisitions as work completed? If so, did the Architect sign all of his requisitions that were submitted for payment that totaled the $7.6 million? It is a requirement, once again, by Baltimore County Public Schools that the Architect must sign all requisitions being submitted for payment or your requisition will be return to you and not paid until it is signed. I know this from past experience, because the Architect forgot to sign one of my requisitions and it as return to them for signature. This delayed my company from getting paid and created a financial burden on my company; however, we knew this was the procedures so we had to follow them. In addition, once the requisition is signed by the Architect, it then needs to be processed by the project manager and signed by one of the Administrator who works at physical facilities (who reports directly to Mr. Sines). Third, I would like to know how Mr. Sines plans to “… adjusts our normal operating procedures…on the basis of the lessons of what went wrong with Milford Mill.” Is Mr. Sines unaware of the procedures that they already have in place or were they not followed because it was James W. Ancel working on the project? I know from in the past, Mr. Ancel has received preferential treatment regarding the processing of his changes order, requisitions, and payments and of course; he seems to always be the lowest bidder on the renovation projects.
Where was the audit department during this time? Did any change orders need to go to Dr. Hairston for approval? I know when I need to submit any changes that are over $25,000, they must be approved by Dr. Hairston first. Was he a part of this collusion?
After your change order is approved by the architect, project manager, an administrator at physical facilities, it is then forwarded to Dr. Hairston for approval. The county does have a lot of checks and balances for other contractors. Why don’t they have them for James W. Ancel?
I would hope that now this has come to light, that Baltimore County Executive, Kevin Kamenetz; Governor Martin O’Malley; Attorney General, Douglas Gansler will request an external audit of Baltimore County Public Schools on all their invoices, especially renovations, since there seems to be a lack of fiduciary responsibility on the County’s part. In addition, I hope that the County Executive request the resignation of the following, Dr. Hairston, Mr. Hines, Mr. Sines and any of the administrators who had signed the requisitions for payment for Mr. Ancel.

GC Taxpayer has done an excellent job explaining what everyone that reads this story inherently knows. A breach of fiduciary duty has occured and heads should roll. What was initially reported as a $3 million dollar mistake is realy $7-8 million dollars. If what GC Taxpayer says is true, there should be $7 million dollars worth of material sitting at Millford Mill and there should be a requisition signed by both the project manager and architect authorizing the payment. If either is not true, then a fraud has taken place. The next step would then be to follow the money to see if there is also corruption involved. Has Mr Ancel paid someone off??? Has someone taken the money??

Dear Mr. Sines:

I am a retired commercial building contractor with over 25 years experience. The Baltimore County School Board's agreement to pay James Ancel Contractor $7.6 million for the work completed on the captioned project as outlined in the Baltimore Sun article (1-11-11) by Liz Bowie is fraud and taxpayer abuse. The work which has been completed (including some misc. demolition which cannot be seen), along with some trailer rental and misc. materials on the site appears to be worth less than $1 million. The new bids received are likely representative of the actual value of the work. The school board's filing of a claim against the architect entirely misses the target and will likely not yield relief to the taxpayers. Ancel Contractor's performance bond should have been should have been foreclosed on and any increase in project cost paid for by the bonding company to which you have likely paid a substantial sum.

This appears to be clearcut taxpayer fraud where the contractor, architect, and school board are all participating parties.