State House surprise

When the State House renovation project was first pitched to the public more than three years ago, members of the news media were led through the handsome yet dilapidated old building and shown dangling electrical wires, exposed pipes, crumbling plaster, cracked flooring and cramped offices. The story, printed and broadcast throughout the state, was that the hub of government was a health and safety nightmare and that the proposed $15 million fix was long overdue.

From that highly public beginning, the project went behind the closed doors of the Legislative Council – the 10-member panel of House and Senate leaders elected by the rank-and-file – and it started to grow, both in scope and expense.

Suddenly, without benefit of public scrutiny, it was a $25 million project, then $32 million, then edged toward $33 million. The definitions of health, safety and accessibility were expanded to include a $30,000 House rostrum of the finest, nonnative, wood. A donated collection of stuffed wildlife was deemed worthy of an $800,000 display case. For that finishing touch, only the best Georgia granite would do.

Now, as the project mercifully enters its final phase, the newly revised estimated price tag is $33.7 million. Since legislators blamed much of the earlier overruns on the red-hot economy of the last few years and the higher prices demanded by the busy building trades sector, an immediate question is why the cooling economy has not had the opposite effect.

Since the law of supply and demand seems to have a subclause stating that prices go up but rarely down, that question may be on the rhetorical side. The more important question, the one for which the public deserves an answer, is how will the Legislative Council address this most recent overrun.

The immediate answer seems to be not very well. The deficit in funding for the project stands at $733,000 and the council plans to fill it by trimming nearly $500,000 and scrounging $250,000.

After a just-concluded session in which legislative leaders, especially in the Senate, had neither the stomach to oppose new spending nor the courage to then admit the inevitability increased taxes, it will be interesting to see just what little corner of the budget contains a quarter-million in unspoken for dollars. The scrounging should be interesting; but the trimming is infuriating.

The two most expensive tasks still undone and on the list for reconsideration are the rebuilding of the deteriorating front steps at $100,000 and adding structural supports to hold up the sagging Law and Legislative Reference Library at $81,000. It appears that the library supports definitely will be done, but it is astonishing that two tasks so clearly related to health and safety are at this late stage even in doubt in a project that was, remember, initially all about health and safety.

Astonishing yet, considering the history of this project, not really surprising.