Convention budget overruns pose new woes

Party may ask Kerry for aid

By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff | May 13, 2004

The price tag for FleetCenter construction and event production for the Democratic National Convention could be as much as 40 percent higher than originally budgeted, forcing the party and local organizers to consider cutting back on spending or asking presidential candidate John F. Kerry to help close the gap.

David Passafaro -- chairman of Boston 2004, the convention host committee -- confirmed that contractors are submitting final cost estimates that are higher than budgeted in the contract between his group and the Democratic National Committee.

Passafaro and another convention organizer said that Democratic Party officials will have to chose whether to try to raise more money or to trim some of the production and construction plans. "We have to decide what we want to buy," said Passafaro, a former top aide to Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

"We're looking at the scope of work and at the cost side," said the host committee chairman, who would not disclose the extent of the cost overruns.

more: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/05/13/convention_budget_overruns_pose_new_woes/

We are a couple of months away from the DNC and they are just now getting final cost estimates? If I was planning the DNC, I would have had those costs finalized, insured in contracts and signed months before work began.

This would be like someone buying a new house, construction company and realtor says $100,000, then a month before you move in, they say "Sorry. That will be $140,000."

Somebody needs to get their act together in the event management department.

...but I knew that this was going to be a bad, bad place to put on a political convention. I saw this kind of bullshit coming from a mile away.

The Republican Governor (Romney) has been in a pissing contest with the Democratic Mayor (Menino), the Mayor has been in a pissing contest with the police unions, and to get anything done with the unions, you have to grossly overpay for everything.

This article from the NYT summarizes the situation pretty nicely.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/politics/campaign/09CONV.html?ex=1084939200&en=f6abf73a3189db6f&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1

-MR

;)

Hah! It sounds like you have never contracted to build a home from scratch before. After a while you start saying to yourself, "What the h*** was I thinking?"

For those of us that have done it, the "extra" you needed because of contractor cost overruns, often very legitimate, was 10%, with 20% being the high end. 40% sounds a bit over the top.