Justice Minton calls for audit of courthouse construction program
By John Cheves – jcheves@herald-leader.com
Supreme Court Chief Justice John D. Minton
Kentucky Chief Justice John Minton Jr. ordered an audit of the state’s massive courthouse construction program Thursday, after questions were raised about inadequate insurance of courthouse construction and the abrupt resignation of the courts official overseeing the program.
“The Administrative Office of the Courts will be retaining counsel with expertise in construction law to carry out this intensive review,” Minton said in a prepared statement. “This audit will begin immediately and its findings will be made public upon completion.”
The AOC’s chief architect, Garlan VanHook, resigned this week after questions were raised about a job that his brother received last year at Codell Construction of Winchester, which has built the majority of new courthouses in recent years.
Also, in a letter to the AOC this week, national experts raised questions about VanHook’s failure to make sure that courthouse projects are fully insured.
In a recent interview, VanHook defended the practice of allowing general contractors to be bonded for only 5 percent of the value of their work, instead of the 100 percent required by state law.
Kentucky law and the contracts signed by construction managers require 100 percent payment and performance bonds. But Codell and Alliance Construction of Glasgow bond many of the state’s new courthouse projects at roughly 5 percent of the projects’ costs, which equals their fee.
In some cases, there was no construction-management bond at all when courthouses were begun. The contract for Washington County’s $12 million judicial center, which is about to open, was signed on March 13, 2006, but the pay and performance bond was not acquired until Jan. 8, 2009.
In the past decade, Kentucky has allocated $880 million for courthouse construction across the state.
Filed Under: Featured • KY Courts • State Government
About the Author: John Stamper is the accountability editor for the Lexington Herald-Leader. A native of Monticello, Ky., he has been with the Herald-Leader in a variety of roles since graduating from Western Kentucky University in 2000. Reach him at jstamper@herald-leader.com
Why not get the Attorney General and the Auditor’s office get involved. It is not only corruption and theft in the courthouse programs it is pervasive in the local jails, health departments, libraries and every project they have crooked the local tax payers out of.
It is time to stop looking the other way while our tax money is being wasted. It is time to put somebody in jail and let them know that the citizens are feed up. Just because they are the most politically powerful company in the state does not give them free rein to steal from the public coffers.
I am sure federal money is used in some of these projects including jails, community centers, recreational facilities, health facilities, etc. Attorney General Conway said on TV he would be working with his counterpart from the federal prosecutor’s office investigating the airport fiasco, why not do the same here?
Is there a list of unapproved contractors in the state? If not, one should be started and guess who can be the first name on the list.
Start that audit in Washington County, where it sounds like a 12 million dollar project went totally un-bonded. What would have happened if that building had collapsed? Senator Kelly?
Two late to worry about projects already completed. Not going to get blood out of a turnip. Can the bonds be gotten to cover the projects under construction?
What about the ones that are getting ready to start?
Why not put a halt to the projects until the bonds are in place?
There should be a moratorium on all unstarted courthouse projects until this audit is completed.
Ban the contractors that cheated is the only thing that will stop this.