By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — The Board of Finance approved a $1.18 million appropriation Wednesday for school paving projects, or did it?

Questions remain about the decision, because it was not immediately clear whether the appropriation is in reality for $1.18 million or, as the board’s agenda stated, $876,000 supplemented by money left over from an earlier appropriation.

Public Works Director Peter Ratkiewich asked the board to approve the $876,000 amount for asphalt paving at Bedford Middle and Staples High schools. 

The project at the two schools is part of a four-year plan to pave Westport school properties, he said, describing the work as “a challenge.” School lot paving, unlike standard street paving, includes striping and numbering parking spaces, and adding curbing, all of which makes those lots expensive, he explained. Also, work is usually done only in the summer, which limits time to complete the job.

Board member Brian Stern said he thought the appropriation under consideration by the Board of Finance should reflect the overall cost of the project — $1.18 million — even though $304,492 carried over from last year’s paving at the same schools was to be used to finish the new projects.

The Board of Finance’s actions must be transparent, he said. “This is a bad precedent. We should approve the whole project.”

Finance Director Gary Conrad told the board, however, that combining the two separate appropriations into an allocation for a single project will make handling the funding more complicated. It’s particularly cumbersome if all the money is not needed to complete the project and officials want to use the funds for something else.

But Stern and other board members wanted their vote to reflect the whole cost, despite Conrad’s opinion. 

The panel went ahead to approve the $1.18 million appropriation unanimously instead of the $876,000 figure.

On Thursday, Conrad said he is concerned about the legality of changing the appropriation amount because it might also affect bonding for the project. 

He has requested a review by the Town Attorney’s Office of Wednesday’s appropriation and the changes made.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Stern also asked what the cost of paving school lots on a per-space basis would be, because Staples High School students are charged a fee for a parking space. 

Ratkiewich said that calculating the expense of paving that way doesn’t make sense, but added he would attempt to come up with an estimated per-space cost.

Caney elected finance chairman

Board of Finance members on Wednesday also voted unanimously to elect Lee Caney, a Democrat, as the new chairman. 

Caney was nominated by board member Nancie Dupier, and seconded by James Foster, a Republican and vice chairman. 

Democrat Sheri Gordon stepped down from the chairman’s seat in November amid what appeared to tensions among board members at the time. Gordon, however, decided to remain a member of the board.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist and journalism teacher for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman newspaper for 10 years and currently teaches journalism at Southern Connecticut State University.