Forensic Audit Report-WPCA Phase IV, Part B. Contract ... - Trumbull

Forensic Consulting Services Report
Town of Trumbull, Connecticut
Page 33
In the case of Contract 3, little documentation was available within the project file and when asked
of Town officials, no additional or new information has been presented to date by the Town’s field
representative, Mr. Clair Jon Garard. During his interview Mr. Garard indicated that although he
typically recorded relevant field data and miscellaneous reminders in notebooks, similar to the only
one on file (physically described for reference as being a “Mead” type, 9 ¾ x 7 ½ inch size, with 200
unnumbered pages, bound with a black & white soft cover, handwritten entries), upon completion of
certain project areas and/or payment periods, they were typically thrown out as not being necessary.
It should be noted that a review of the one notebook currently on file was merely a limited and
somewhat sporadic array of general information for locations throughout the contract area, and
serves little value for recreating any organized documentation for the project, especially in regards to
confirming quantities.
The entire contract lacks any resemblance of adequate or reliable documents such as the following:
daily, weekly or monthly reports of the construction operations; general data relating to weather,
working conditions, safety precautions or management of traffic; recorded information relative the
number of contractor crews working or their various onsite locations during the contract period;
recorded information as to subsurface conditions encountered or groundwater constraints that may
have impacted the operations; listings of the labor force and/or equipment utilized by the contractor
on the project; detailed or quantified listings of the quantities or items of work completed by the
contractor to confirm the inspector’s certification of the contractor’s monthly Application for
Payments; detailed locations, quantified listings and justification for those items of work completed
by the contractor and charged to the “Supplementary Unit Prices”; recorded survey data for the
facilities installed to check or confirm line and grade; nor any detailed or supporting as-built
information to compare with or confirm the limited information previously submitted by the
contractor.
It should be clearly noted and recognized that despite the typical need for such documentation it does
not appear that any type of standardized recordkeeping formats or general approaches were ever
established by the Town in advance or during the construction to aide Mr. Garard with his duties.
As such, Mr. Garard was given little if any guidance by his superiors as to any expectations for
recordkeeping. This appears true for not only Contract 3, but also any prior contracts to which he
was assigned. During the interview process, parties stated that they were either not aware of any
type of procedures typically utilized for construction monitoring and therefore no such guidance was
given, felt that Mr. Garard should have known or at least recognized a need and complied
accordingly based on his position, were under the impression that an adequate level of recordkeeping
was indeed being kept and could not explain why it wasn’t, or simply did not think such
documentation was that important or necessary and therefore did not pursue the matter. In all cases
it was clear that Mr. Garard’s supervisors, including members of the WPCA, failed to take any
active role in monitoring the needs and oversight of the project in regards to any type of
recordkeeping and extended far too much confidence and reliance on Town staff at this grade and
level. This brings into question the judgment of upper level management and elevates the need to
have more well qualified and more experienced personnel serving the Town at all levels. It also
brings into question whether the “duty of care” responsibility was discharged by those in positions of