Posted on 03/26/2002 5:53:33 AM PST by LoneGOPinCT
March 26, 2002
By JON LENDER, Courant Staff Writer
The state's trash authority, already under fire for losing $220 million in a failed deal with Enron Corp., has a new issue to grapple with: Last year, the authority gave about 20 tractor-trailers - at no charge - to a private company controlled by the Plainville-area Manafort family.
Members of the Manafort family and employees of its businesses have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Gov. John G. Rowland's campaigns this year and in the past, and officials from a public employees' union see a connection.
However, a trash authority spokesman said the giveaway was part of a sound business strategy, unrelated to campaign contributions. Rowland's press secretary, Dean Pagani, said the authority "makes its own decisions" without checking with the governor's office.
The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority says that it transferred title of the garbage-hauling trucks and trailers to the Manafort firm, Connecticut Waste Processing, as part of a cost-saving move away from the Metropolitan District Commission's operation of the trucks.
The move also was intended to ensure that the private firm assumes all liability for any mishaps - contrary to the prior arrangement with the MDC, authority spokesman Brian Flaherty said.
But union representatives for MDC employees question the decision to hand over about 20 tractors and 23 trailers for nothing.
"One day the trucks belonged to the CRRA, and the next day they just belonged to ... who? Do we just give taxpayers' trucks to a private company?" asked Sal Luciano, executive director for the statewide Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Union officials said they heard the trucks, the majority at least 8 years old but one of them new, were worth $500,000. Actually, one internal estimate by the authority put their value at more than $1 million as of last year.
However, for accounting purposes, most of the trucks have been fully depreciated, down to zero, the authority says. Union representatives respond that the book value for accounting purposes is different from a vehicle's operational value.
"This is unbelievable," said Gilbert Bironi, head of an AFSCME union local representing MDC workers. "That's a gift, because you can run them into the ground and you don't have to spend a dime on maintenance."
The tractors and trailers were transferred to Connecticut Waste Processing last year when the private firm was hired under a three-year contract - renewable for two more years - to take over two of the authority's four garbage transfer stations in the Mid-Connecticut trash-disposal system.
The firm took over the Torrington station last July and the Watertown station last December, saving the authority $1.2 million a year, Flaherty said. It operates the stations and trucks garbage to the Mid-Connecticut trash-to-energy plant in Hartford. The MDC still runs the garbage-processing part of that Hartford plant, and still runs the authority's Essex and Ellington transfer stations, hauling trash from them to Hartford.
The authority owned the tractors and trailers operating out of Torrington and Watertown during previous years when the MDC ran those stations, and it paid the MDC about $900,000 a year to maintain the trucks, for which the authority maintained liability coverage, Flaherty said. Now, those costs and all liability are borne by Connecticut Waste Processing - after it was given the trucks, he said.
The authority still owns the trucks involved with the Essex and Ellington stations that the MDC still operates - and it still is responsible for costs of maintenance and any liability in case of accident, Flaherty said.
Connecticut Waste Processing was low bidder for the contract in 1999 - two years before the authority bounced the MDC from the two stations last year in a contract dispute that is still subject to a pending arbitration case.
The contract calls for the trucks to be returned to the authority by the contractor if the arbitration case results in the MDC's reinstatement as contractor at the Torrington or Watertown stations. Also, if the three-year contract is not renewed for a fourth year, the contractor must pay the authority $224,000 representing 20 percent of the trucks' and trailers' value. If it is extended for a fourth year but is not renewed for a fifth, the contractor has to pay $112,000.
Flaherty acknowledged that the bidding documents did not call for the trucks to be owned by the contractor, but he said the decision to transfer them was made last year after the authority's liability experts weighed in.
A call to Connecticut Waste Processing was not returned Monday.
The trucks from Torrington and Watertown had been showing up in Hartford overloaded beyond state and federal safety standards for months leading up to February, when disclosure of the problem resulted in better compliance. However, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal still wrote earlier this month to the state Department of Transportation asking that it look into the situation.
If any one would like to be removed from my CT Bump list, please let me know and it will be done ASAP. Conversely, if you would like to be added the same holds true.
The contract calls for the trucks to be returned to the authority by the contractor if the arbitration case results in the MDC's reinstatement as contractor at the Torrington or Watertown stations. Also, if the three-year contract is not renewed for a fourth year, the contractor must pay the authority $224,000 representing 20 percent of the trucks' and trailers' value. If it is extended for a fourth year but is not renewed for a fifth, the contractor has to pay $112,000.
Flaherty acknowledged that the bidding documents did not call for the trucks to be owned by the contractor, but he said the decision to transfer them was made last year after the authority's liability experts weighed in.
If, under their contract the contractor had use of the equipment but the equipment still belonged to the authority the authority would be liable, so the "liability experts" relieved the authority's liability by signing over the ownership to the contractor....
Makes sense to me.
Not at all. Heck of a deal, legal or not. They didn't build that nice house on the water in Old Saybrook by getting the $hit-end of the stick on the state contracts. Their lawyers earn their paychecks!
The "good ole boys" club of state contracts is a CT staple ... tell me something new. &;-)
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