Scranton board committee debates hiring on‑retainer architect and separate construction manager after questions about current owner's‑rep contract

The Scranton School District's vendor relations committee debated whether to put architect services on retainer and whether to bid construction management services separately, after several board members raised concerns about potential conflicts and fees under the district's current owner's‑representative contract.

Chair Tarioni opened the discussion by asking administration to explain options for issuing an RFQ to secure an on‑retainer architect. Dr. Keating said the district currently uses Dewey as an owner's representative and that Dewey's contract includes an amendment for design of miscellaneous facilities projects and construction‑phase oversight. Keating said Dewey provides project management, prepares bid documents, reviews change orders and oversees schedules and budgets but did not recommend a course of action without more time to review the full contract language.

Directors including Borthwick, Casey and Gilmartin said they were concerned that bundling design and construction oversight can create competing incentives and that fee structures—such as a reported 7–7.5% design fee and a construction‑phase percentage—should be scrutinized if the district retained an architect on retainer. Borthwick described missing bid tab sheets for past projects and questioned whether the district had sufficient independent oversight. The panel also discussed how some design work is performed in‑house or subcontracted and whether the district was effectively paying for services that it could competitively procure.

An Arif, identified as the owner's representative on the call, said Dewey was hired through a competitive process and that its owners‑rep scope is similar to a construction manager's responsibilities; he disputed suggestions that Dewey had withheld records and offered to provide bid tabs and change‑order reports. Arif also provided preliminary numbers for change orders, saying, by his account, the district had seen roughly $1.8 million in change orders on approximately $78 million of work (he said about $1.2 million of that was permit costs) and that the overall change‑order rate was low relative to the scale of the program.

There was no motion to award a contract. The committee voted to leave the RFQ motion on the full board agenda at the president's direction but directed administration to: gather and circulate the Dewey bid tabs, provide an itemized change‑order summary (including the fire‑alarm example raised by Borthwick), and meet with Dr. Saylor (administration in Harrisburg) to clarify how the recovery plan interacts with procurement decisions. Keating said he would attempt to assemble that information and that he could not, in good conscience, deliver a fully formed recommendation within 30 days given the size of the capital portfolio.

The committee also requested a written cost schedule showing how design and construction‑phase percentages scale by project size and asked for options that would avoid conflicts of interest while protecting taxpayers. The board did not direct immediate contract changes; any procurement or contract amendment would return to the board for a vote after the requested materials are provided.