School district agrees to settlement with firm

The Clark County School Board Tuesday agreed to offer a $3.5 million settlement to the Parsons-Fleming-Taylor Construction Management firm in connection with a lawsuit scheduled to go to trial next week.

"Hopefully, they will accept the offer," Bill Hoffman, the school district's lead attorney, said. "It will remain open until noon on Thursday."

A requirement of the settlement agreement will be that neither party will admit to any wrongdoing.

Hoffman also said the money will be paid out of a bond fund that is set aside for lawsuits related to school construction. It will not come from the district's general operating fund.

Over the past two years the school district's budget has been cut about $50 million, and school officials are saying they can't afford any more. The district's general operating budget this year is $1.1 billion.

Parsons-Fleming-Taylor filed a $3.9 million lawsuit against the school district in April, which maintained that the district demanded the firm perform duties outside of its contract. Among them were overseeing the construction of Lied Middle School, cost analyses and building code inspections.

The firm was hired in April 1995 at a maximum of $25.7 million to manage the 1994 bond program, along with the construction of 25 new schools and renovations to others.

In April 1997 the district gave the firm a six-month warning to improve its performance or lose out on overseeing work from the $643 million 1996 bond.

The School Board also stripped Parsons-Fleming-Taylor from duties related to $302 million in capital improvements within the bond issue and handed over the responsibility to school district staffers.

At the height of the turmoil, contractors and district staff members accused the firm of being over budget and difficult to work with.

Parsons officials countered those claims and maintained the 1994 bond would be finished over a year earlier than scheduled.

In October 1997 the School Board voted to disallow the firm from bidding on new projects under the 1996 bond. But, the School Board ruled, it could complete construction work under the 1994 bond.

Contractors and subcontractors in 1998 began filing multiple lawsuits against the district in relation to overtime and double shift pay they claim was owed to them.

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