The "All-In" Plan That Wasn't: LPS Money Pit Edition

Tony "All-In' Suozzo

Back in 2021, Superintendent Anthony Suozzo told tax payers and residents that the $33.4 million for the referendum was the complete facilities costs for renovating Lambertville Public School (LPS) and building a new middle school. It was "All-In".

As it turned out, that wasn't even close to being true. While we're tracking both the LPS and Middle School construction, today we're focusing on the true total costs of renovating the LPS, what was promised vs. what was actually delivered.

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Out of the $33.4 million from the referendum, $12.7 million was allocated to LPS. We were told the LPS renovation would include:

• New HVAC in the main classroom portion of the building

• New floors in classrooms

• New ceiling tiles

• LED lighting

• Temperature controls

• ADA accessible building and bathrooms

• Both parking lots repaved

• Security

• New fire rated interior walls and new sprinkler system

• Casework for classrooms

Tax payers were told explicitly that a new roof "would not be needed" by Superintendent Suozzo because "it was recently replaced".

As it turned out, LPS turned out to be the money pit everyone feared it would be, and the $12.7 million "all-in" promised by the Superintendent wasn't close. So the district has just kept spending money on it. This included:

LPS New Roof, $1.3 million. Less than a year after telling tax payers that the LPS roof was fine, Superintendent Suozzo told the public and the Board that the roof was failing and needed to be replaced. The district spent $1.3 million to do this, and not using referendum money. The district received a so-called ROD grant for this from the State which covers 40% of the cost. The legality of such a grant given the referendum construction was active is questionable at best.

Jesus School, $600,000. The Superintendent hid the true cost of using the Jesus School during the LPS renovations from the public, and for good reason. The school charged the district an eye-popping half a million dollars to lease part of the building. Worse, the building was in poor repair and out of code, which required the district to spend tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade the building. The Jesus School also refused access to most of the parking lot, forcing the district to spend tens of thousands more leasing parking from the City of Lambertville. There was no playground. Not surprisingly, most of the kids and staff were miserable during their time there, and 2023/24 school year was largely another lost year for the Lambertville elementary school cohort.

Gym/Cafeteria HVAC, $500,000. The gym area of the LPS building was out of scope for the referendum, but suddenly the district added it in-scope for unknown reasons. We paid Murray's Paving and Concrete for the new gym-area HVAC system. This was also covered by a ROD grant.

Kitchen facilities, $140,000. We paid a small restaurant company out of Newark nearly $140K to install new refrigeration and kitchen facilities, including a giant external walk in freezer. There was no mention of this during the referendum process.

Toys. $35,000 was spent on the new digital sign in front of LPS. $20,000 was spent on the Lu Interactive Playground, what amounts to a Augmented Realiity (AR) video game that projects onto the gym wall. Hundreds of thousands was spent on furniture and new hardwood floors.

All told, the district has spent at least $2.4 million on LPS above and beyond what "all-in" Suozzo told tax payers renovating LPS would cost.

Beyond the ROD grants mentioned above, the district was on the hook to pay for all of the above. If you wonder why suddenly all of the South Hunterdon sports terms are fund raising to keep their teams alive, here's a big reason why - money was diverted away from programs focusing on the kids, and was instead spent on the LPS Money Pit.

For the full story, visit our school facilities spend page.