"Auditor demands Fort Lauderdale airport bonus be returned"

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Auditor demands airport bonus be returned
$300,000 paid for garage work disputed
By Scott Wyman 
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel 

 
Auditors for Broward County are demanding repayment of a $300,000 bonus
given to the firm that built the $247 million parking garage and rental car
facility at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. 

In a report sent to county commissioners Friday, the auditors contend
project managers could not substantiate the delays they approved because of
the three hurricanes of 2004. As a result, auditors argue Cummings-Centex
Rooney should not have earned the bonus for completing the project ahead of
schedule in January 2005.

Airport administrators and their contractors are contesting the findings.
They maintain the 14 days taken to prepare for hurricanes Frances, Jeanne
and Ivan and restart work afterward was reasonable. 

"Part of the work involved with every hurricane is to lock the place down
and make it as secure as possible, and that takes time to occur," airport
spokesman Jim Reynolds said.

The findings are part of a larger audit of the mega-construction project,
one of the most complex ever undertaken by the county. The audit also
questions if affirmative action goals were skirted, alleging one of the
minority subcontractors did little of the work it was paid to undertake. 

The commission is scheduled to discuss Tuesday whether to follow the
auditors' recommendations and seek the money back.

The nine-story garage was built to ease parking problems at the busy airport
and to allow 12 rental car companies to consolidate their operations on the
airport grounds. 

The contract that the county signed with Cummings-Centex Rooney promised a
$300,000 bonus if it could finish work by Dec. 28, 2004. The project's
overseer, URS Corp., granted Cummings-Centex Rooney the additional 14 days,
and the auditors say URS should repay the money.

The auditors said records show contractors were working on the garage on
Sept. 7, one of the six days of delay granted for Hurricane Frances, and on
Sept. 27, one of the four days of delay granted for Hurricane Jeanne. They
also said logbooks showed crews busy on construction work during all of the
four days of delay granted for Hurricane Ivan. 

"They were supposed to do certain things to prove reasons for any delay or
request for extension, and they haven't done that," County Auditor Evan
Lukic said.

Aviation Director Tom Jargiello and executives at Cummings and URS said in
letters to commissioners that all that time was spent on storm-related work
rather than construction. Jargiello said preparations for Ivan were
justified because the storm's initial track was toward South Florida, and
that crews would have needed to come in on weekends at overtime pay in order
to remobilize after Frances and Jeanne if the delays had not been approved. 

"We are adamant that the minimal days requested and approved are justified
and appropriate," wrote James Cummings, the head of the construction
consortium of James A. Cummings Inc. and Centex Rooney. 

With the minority subcontracting, auditors questioned a $2.1 million deal
Cummings-Centex Rooney awarded to TLMC Enterprises for drywall work. The
auditors found that the agreement required TLMC to have another firm,
Lotspeich Co., do $2 million of the work.

Without the TLMC deal, Cummings-Centex Rooney would not have met the
affirmative action goals set in its contract. 

Cummings said in his letter to commissioners that TLMC wanted to gain more
experience in drywall work and asked if it could do it in conjunction with a
more established company. 

County equal opportunity officials said, though, that they were not aware of
the mentoring plan and that it should not have been counted toward the
goals.

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