Oversight Is Long Overdue

It would be almost farcical if it weren’t so serious, but the latest news out of the saga that has become the reconstruction of the former Stella Maris Regional School building into the Sag Harbor Learning Center once more proves a point: It is incumbent on the Sag Harbor School Board to take a role of greater oversight on a project that is not only millions of dollars over budget, it is one where, when issues arise, it is weeks, if not several months, before board members — or taxpayers — find out.

Last week, it was revealed at a Board of Education meeting that trace amounts of arsenic were found in soil samples from near a retaining wall at the rear of the property. While few details were offered to a crowded boardroom at the meeting, documentation available to the board and the public via the night’s agenda revealed a memo dated June 6, 2019, noting the $24,327 cost necessary to remove approximately 300 tons of contaminated soil from the site and cart it away.

Four days after the meeting, Interim Superintendent of Schools Eleanor Tritt wrote a letter to parents, staff and community members offering a few more details. Initial soil samples were taken in the late spring of 2019, and one sample showed “a trace amount of arsenic.” Ms. Tritt noted, “Currently, the district has been made aware by experts in the industry that the small trace amount is not uncommon for soil of its kind in the local area.”

While the letter is reassuring, it also raises the question: Why were more details not offered to the public at the board meeting, including information already existing in documentation? And where is the demand for answers about how something like the discovery of arsenic, even in trace amounts, on a school property was something that both board members and the public didn’t find out about for seven months?

The Sag Harbor Learning Center project is as much as $2.5 million over budget, with change work orders coming before the board at seemingly every turn. While former Business Administrator Jennifer Buscemi gave the public a financial update on the project in October, it is time for the Board of Education to consider a full audit of this project and certainly take a more proactive role in guiding it to an eventual finish line.

In the past, we have often criticized boards of education that micromanage each and every memo or discussion coming out of administrative offices — that falls outside of the role of the board. That said, with this project in particular, it has been increasingly clear the public needs and deserves its elected trustees to become more involved.