Karl Baker

The News Journal



Delaware Department of Transportation officials led by Secretary Jennifer Cohan told the public a $4 million remodel of agency headquarters is an effort to bring an old government building into compliance with standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Yet multiple sources with direct knowledge of the project's planning say that was only a slice of the truth – stating that ADA considerations did not arise until late in the process.

Contradicting the official line, they stated the multimillion-dollar remodel instead moved forward because the building was an uninviting work environment. One individual involved in planning meetings said Cohan wanted to spiff up the Dover building to appease her cadre of engineers, financial experts, planners and other staff who have dealt with years of stagnant wages.

“The discussions revolved around what can we do to improve the morale of the employees. We can’t give them a pay increase. Let’s improve their working conditions,” said the individual, who requested anonymity to protect their career.

With work crews tearing up sub-floors and adding the latest telecommunications connectivity in the Dover building on South Bay Road, lawmakers a mile away, at Legislative Hall, are wading through the state's deepest budget hole in nearly a decade.

As they review every dollar spent in state government, the apparent lack of transparency about DelDOT's renovation signals a troubling turn for an agency that oversees the disbursements of hundreds of millions of state and federal taxpayer dollars each year.

The question to consider, said a government ethics expert from Georgetown University, is whether DelDOT hid the true intent of the project.

“To purely conceal the central purpose of your action, then it moves into the area of deceptiveness and that makes me nervous, and that should make public officials nervous, too," said Mark Carl Rom, a professor at Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy.

Cohan said her agency was absolutely transparent.

"ADA was the epicenter,” Cohan said.

In early February, an agency spokesman told The News Journal the reason for the construction – which began in January and is scheduled to be completed this summer – is to meet ADA standards, a legal requirement that has caused DelDOT in past decades to rethink how it plans transit, roads and even public meetings.

The law, signed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, prohibits discrimination and mandates that people with disabilities have the same opportunities and access as anyone else.

"The most significant ADA issues being addressed are accessibility in eight restrooms, the lobby/reception area, some offices, parking spaces/walkways, water fountains and signage," DelDOT spokesman Bud Freel said in an early-February email.

In the weeks since, The News Journal collected statements and emails from DelDOT staff that illustrate that was not the impetus for the multimillion-dollar project.

When introducing the project to staff a year ago in an email, Cohan said the goals were to improve working conditions and morale. She did not mention ADA.

When introducing the project to media in February, Freel said the project was prompted by the ADA. He did not mention morale.

Emails sent by Freel to DelDOT executive staff following media inquiries show him peppering a colleague with questions as he "was trying to come up (with) the justification for this project now."

The construction, focused at the headquarter's East Wing, includes $1.9 million for new furniture, carpets and cubicles, and another $1.8 million for things like rebuilt meeting rooms and new offices for human resources staff.

The total cost from three primary contracts totals $3.72 million, plus an additional $430,000 for moving expenses and a temporary lease at the Blue Hen Corporate Center. The East Wing, built in the 1960s, was last renovated in 1992.

Mixed messages

From a window office adorned with Delaware license plate art, Cohan told The News Journal in March the remodel of the headquarters will transform the Dover building into an exemplar of ADA compliance.

Any assertion the project is an unwise use of funds is “ridiculous,” she said as construction sounds echoed nearby.

DelDOT's public-facing buildings must comply with every stipulation of ADA because the agency, through its civil rights section, also is an enforcer of the law, she said, noting ADA upgrades have occurred at dozens of other state buildings.

"It’s kind of absurd to have the agency responsible for ADA enforcement not be ADA-compliant itself, especially at our headquarters,” she said.

Improved spirits among employees simply would be a welcome byproduct of the remodel, she said.

"We want to have a place that talented people want to come and work, and having a good work environment is critical to that,” she said.

Accessibility issues were brought to her attention, Cohan said, after DelDOT's former ADA coordinator John McNeal carried out an accessibility study in 2016. It was that study that led to the renovation, she said.

But McNeal remembers it differently. He oversaw the ADA study, which was conducted by a consultant, after a planned remodel had already been decided upon, he said.

"It wasn’t the ADA that pushed the renovations,” he said. “The renovations were simply because the building was old.”

The study, however, did turn up scores of recommended upgrades, ranging from signs that lacked braille lettering to office and bathroom doors that were too narrow for a wheelchair to pass through. Navigating through the building "could be a challenge at times,” said McNeal, who uses a wheelchair.

While ADA might not have been the motivation, making the building more accessible for people with disabilities was "just a good practice," he said. Under Cohan, he said, DelDOT increased annual spending on ADA improvements along roads and at state facilities by tenfold.

"The department has made a substantial investment in ADA compliance. For instance, increasing the annual ADA budget, or pedestrian improvement budget for ADA improvements from $300,000 to $3 million a year," he said.

Agencies were not required by the 1990 law to immediately make ADA improvements to already existing building and sidewalks. As a result, there are numerous sidewalks along state-managed roads that lack ramps and many roads with no sidewalks at all. The gradual process to upgrade that infrastructure is ongoing.

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Daniese McMullin-Powell, an advocate for people with disabilities, said while she appreciates the work at DelDOT's headquarters, the department should focus more on accessibility issues on sidewalks and transit, citing the inability of people in wheelchairs to access numerous streets and bus stops in Delaware.

“Most (disabled) people take transportation on a daily basis, and it's a lot more people than the one or two who might be employed at (DelDOT),” said McMullin-Powell, who uses a wheelchair.

Cohan argues ADA issues should not compete with each other, that accessibility upgrades can happen concurrently. Her agency has conducted ADA upgrades at numerous other DelDOT facilities, she stressed, including a half-million-dollar upgrade to bathrooms at the Smyrna rest area.

“We don’t have to choose between ADA compliance in our headquarters buildings and ADA compliance out on the street. Both should happen,” she said.

The funds for the headquarters construction come from DelDOT's facility line in the Capital Transportation Program. The CTP, as it's known, is a six-year priority list of infrastructure projects across the state.

When pressed whether the remodel is a good use of funds for ADA, McNeal stated, “Again, my understanding of the needs for the renovation ... were because of the challenges of the building being older and deteriorating, and with regards to the working space being friendly to the employees."

The original construction idea was to renovate the entire headquarters, McNeal said, but “budget challenges” limited it mostly to the older east building.

Cohan said the idea for the reconstruction went back to at least 2015. That was also the year lawmakers gave DelDOT an injection of dollars for capital projects from an increase in fees imposed at the Division of Motor Vehicles. Sen. Colin Bonini, R-Dover South, said that money was intended for roads, but he has noticed how Cohan takes employee morale very seriously.

"We were told it is important to raise (fees) because all of the projects that were backlogged, he said. "They (brought) out these statistics about X number of our bridges are failing. We did not get a statistic saying our headquarters is failing."

His colleague, Senate Minority Leader Gary Simpson, R-Milford, said if the true purpose is, in fact, ADA, then DelDOT has little discretion. They must improve conditions because "it is a lawsuit waiting to happen."

"If somebody came to me and said we can either take $4 million and upgrade this road and fix the cracks ... or we can use it to make this building ADA-compliant, I say we got to do the ADA first," he said.

While planning the project, Cohan was keenly aware of financial concerns if the project cost grew too high, said Hugh Curran, former DelDOT finance director, who now works at Denver International Airport.

“Secretary Cohan was very sensitive about cost, and it’s a large space,” Curran said. The building “felt like 'That 70's Show' within an endless maze of cubicles.”

In an email, he echoed McNeal's statements, stating although the building needed ADA upgrades, project goals were “safety, talent retention and attraction, increased productivity, collaboration/innovation and increased esprit de corp.”

The East Wing's massive, open-floor spaces, particularly on its second floor, was crowded with scores of cubicles, as staff from multiple divisions type and talk within earshot of each other. The atmosphere was not conducive to employee innovation, Cohan said.

Simpson said the space has been in terrible shape for years.

"As long as I've known the building, it is a drab, dreary space filled with cubicles," he said.

An official from the Delaware Office of Management and Budget, which approves capital projects planned for state government buildings confirmed the project began before McNeal's accessibility study. But the ADA needs pushed it forward.

"ADA really spurred the project because it involved the entire building inside and out. And to accomplish some of the requirements to make it accessible, parts of the other projects had to be done. Furniture needed to be reconfigured," said Mike Svaby, director of facilities management at the Office of Management and Budget.

Being transparent

A year ago, Cohan told DelDOT staff in an email the reason for the project was to create an office "that is safe, is conducive to hiring and retaining talented employees, increases productivity, enables collaboration and innovation, (and) builds morale." She did not mention ADA.

The News Journal obtained the communication through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The project also would be partially a collaborative effort, she said, and asked employees for suggestions for upgrades through an employee survey.

In a string of emails obtained by The News Journal, employees requested personal improvements that had nothing to do with ADA.

For instance, while asking for an upgrade to her work area, Theresa Vander Schel, DelDOT manager of application support, said, "As new furniture is being ordered for the sit/stand desks, can we please incorporate those into the basement?"

In October, after employee surveys were filled and funding secured, Cohan formally announced plans to her staff in an email, which again contained no mention of ADA.

“We hope you and your colleagues are excited about having a more efficient, collaborative and healthier work space in 2017,” she wrote.

Today, as sections of the East Building have been turned into a construction zone, much of its central staff are working temporarily at the Blue Hen Corporate Center, a former mall that sits across Bay Road from the Dover headquarters. It frequently is used as temporary shelter for government operations.

DelDOT signed a lease with property owner Pettinaro for 55,000 square feet of office space, totaling $373,450 over seven months. Another $33,461 was paid to Hopkins and Sons Inc. to move desks, refrigerators and other equipment from the headquarters to the Blue Hen Corporate Center.

But as moving was set to commence in January, DelDOT employees found leaks in the roof of the temporary space. In an email to DelDOT's acting Finance Director Shante Hastings, Nathaniel Delesline noted the air quality in the building was "very poor." Officials delayed the move for days as flaws in the temporary office were fixed, leading to grumbling from staff.

Cohan admitted the move has created "some upset employees."

Worker frustration is not uncommon in state government. Employees from DelDOT and other state agencies have told The News Journal numerous times during past years that the dearth of pay raises since the 2008 financial crisis has caused unease among staff members.

From correctional officers to highway workers to social service providers, pay has been a constant gripe.

When asked if a pay raise would make DelDOT employees happier, Cohan stated rhetorically, “If you got a raise, would it boost your morale?”

With the state facing a projected $386 million budget deficit, raises appear unlikely. Convincing legislators like Bonini to vote for a tax increase proposed by Carney to maintain government at current levels will be challenging enough.

To build goodwill, Bonini said, agencies should be completely clear about their multimillion-dollar expenditures.

"I'm sure there's not a state agency out there that wouldn't like an upgrade to its building," he said. "But if you're spending the money to upgrade the building, then tell us you're spending the money to upgrade the building."

Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.