THE lengthy delays in the completion of the newly built John F. Kennedy High School is a daily issue school administrators deal with every day since the school opened last calendar year.

Assistant Principal Hannah Gutierrez said projects continue at a snail’s pace, sometimes not at all. The gym and the playing fields have yet to be completed and there are more excuses than answers.

JFK principal Ken Chargualaf’s list still has many unfinished projects that need completion.

To get answers, Sen. Judi Guthertz has asked Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks to conduct an audit to answer her questions.

Voicing her concerns as well, Speaker Judi Won Pat has scheduled a roundtable discussion next Wednesday at 10 a.m. in the public hearing room. The Speaker’s office has invited representatives from International Bridge Corporation, the Guam Economic Development Authority, JFK, and the Department of Public Works.

Guthertz and Won Pat said all stakeholders must know what is causing the long delays in the construction of the facilities.

International Bridge Corporation is the contractor who built the school. The total cost to taxpayers for the new campus based on a 30-year lease-back loan is approximately $201 million which includes the $5.1 million debt service, said Karl Pangelinan, director of the Guam Economic Development Authority. The cost to taxpayers per year for 30 years is $6.7 million.

Regarding IBC’s work at the school, Guthertz said the contract criteria for computing construction work days were either not strict enough or the penalties were not strong enough to encourage full compliance with the anticipated timeline for the construction of all phases.

The government of Guam will not realize any amount of liquidated damages or reimbursement if it has been determined that IBC breached its contract after IBC President Robert Toelkes told island leaders that the school could be built in nine months.

In an Aug. 30, 2011 letter to GEDA Director Pangelinan, CaPFA Capital Corp. President John Ahern wrote that as far as they’re concerned, liquidated damages do not apply. If liquidated damages are incurred, all penalties will be paid to CaPFA, according to the contract.

Sen. Ben Pangelinan has already written a letter to CaPFA, inquiring about liquidated damages for the JFK project. In September 2011, Sen. Pangelinan said it is still unclear as to what the total amount of liquidated damages are. CaPFA is the company that holds the lease on the JFK property.

In the contract, liquidated damages amount to $1,500 a day, “that’s the arrangement because CaPFA has the lease on the property and they have IBC as the contractor, so it’s really between the contractor and CaPFA,” Department of Public Works Director Joanne Brown had said.

CaPFA’s letter to Sen. Pangelinan stated, “With regard to JFK LDs (liquidated damages), CaPFA, as owner/lessor, has been and is still of the opinion that no LDs as noted in the Project Development Agreement are due from the Developer (IBC) on a per diem basis since June 21, 2011, because of the application of more than one of the LD exceptions noted.”

This means any reimbursed or liquidated damages will not be paid to the government, but rather, IBC will pay the liquidated damages to CaPFA Capital Corp., who has the lease on the property.