Rick Baker has accused Mayor Rick Kriseman of spending wildly on a new police station, saying it is $35 million over budget.
Kriseman, in contrast, says the project is actually under budget.
"We've got a police station that's under construction right now, they are actually ahead of schedule and under budget," Kriseman told Beauty & the 'Burg, a podcast on LifeImprovementRadio.com, on Aug. 9.
That makes two competing narratives about the police station from the leading candidates in Tuesday's mayoral primary. We wondered who was right.
Here's the deal: Both candidates misrepresented the facts.
Kriseman makes premature claim
It's too soon to say anything about the budget and timeline for the construction of the police department.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the new headquarters at 1301 First Ave. N was just in late April. The new building is not expected to be ready to use until spring 2019.
St. Petersburg plans to spend about $86 million on new police facilities, including $6.5 million for a new shooting range.
So why did Kriseman say it was under budget and ahead of schedule? A spokesman said the mayor was referring to the possibility of the city not tapping into a $1.4 million contingency fund for unexpected costs.
"The mayor's remarks were based on conversations with staff, who informed him that things are progressing well, no surprises, and that there is a chance we may not need all the contingency money and could finish under budget," said spokesman Ben Kirby. "But there is a long way to go."
City architect Raul Quintana said the amount of contingency dollars fluctuates during various points of the project.
"Generally, the earlier we are in a project and the greater the unknowns, then the higher the project contingency," he said.
Despite the possibility of not needing this money, Quintana said the nature of the project is very complicated, so the city plans to keep the contingency money in play.
As for the timeline, Quintana said the project was ahead of schedule by at least three weeks and he "feels good" about how the project has progressed. But with so much time to go, he said there are some factors that could affect the timeline, such as the weather and labor shortages.
"If I was building a project I would never communicate that early in a job because there's just too many unknowns," said Winter Park Construction president Jeff Forrest. "There's too many opportunities just to easily lose that time."
We rate Kriseman's claim Mostly False.
Baker's claim is wrong, too
Baker criticized Kriseman's spending habits in a Tampa Bay Times interview in June, saying, "To me it's all about quality of life. Whether it's dog parks, skate board parks, rec centers . . . And the trouble is, if you're $35 million over budget on the Pier and $35 million over budget on a police station, it's very hard to do that stuff."
The project cannot be over budget at this stage. Again, it's too early.
Moreover, Baker is holding Kriseman to a cost estimate that came down when he was mayor, and was significantly revised under Mayor Bill Foster.
In 2006, $50 million was set aside for the new police headquarters.
In 2010, a consultant determined that the city of St. Petersburg needed to spend $74 million to replace its police headquarters.
The economy was hurting, and city officials knew they couldn't afford the increased spending. So they looked at other options, including building a scaled-down version while making updates to the old facility.
When the economy picked up, Kriseman announced in 2015 that the city would have enough money to build a new station for $70 million. After the budget was set at $70 million (a decision approved by the city council 7-1), additional costs were added for parking, energy-efficient features and a new shooting range, bringing the final budget for new police facilities to $86 million.
Baker told PolitiFact Florida that "anything the department needed, should have been built into that initial $50 million dollar budget, period."
"The fact that Kriseman is playing budgetary games does not hide the fact that, as documented by the Tampa Bay Times on multiple occasions, he is on a 'spending binge,' " Baker said.
The pieces his campaign highlighted do not refer to the project as "over budget."
The city says it has so far spent $4 million toward construction. The total cost for construction is $61 million. The rest of the costs are for architecture, planning and other services related to the pre-development of the project.
We rate Baker's claim False.
Contact Allison Graves at agraves@tampabay.com. Follow @AllisonBGraves
The statement
"We've got a police station that's under construction right now, they are actually ahead of schedule and under budget."
Rick Kriseman, Aug. 9 in a podcast interview
The ruling
In reality, there is no definitive evidence that supports Kriseman's claim about being under budget, and the city's architect estimates that the project is three weeks ahead of schedule. We rate it Mostly False.
The statement
Says Rick Kriseman is $35 million over budget on St. Petersburg's new police station."
Rick Baker, June 14 in an interview
The ruling
Baker's insistence that Kriseman should have stuck to a budget developed 11 years ago ignores the changed expectations before Kriseman took office. Moreover, the city is not far enough along on the project to say that it's over budget. So far, there's no indication that the city is spending more than what the council approved. We rate it False.